


In the Quiet Places

by Kyerie



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Complete, F/M, M/M, Post-His Last Vow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-27
Updated: 2015-03-02
Packaged: 2018-03-15 11:49:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 24
Words: 49,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3446075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kyerie/pseuds/Kyerie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Returned to London following his truncated exile, Sherlock Holmes learns firsthand why caring is not an advantage when he faces a loss he would never have predicted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This work was written in its entirety in the span of nine days but is, as yet, unedited so be aware there are some minor errors which will be corrected at a later point.
> 
> I have benefitted in the writing of this fic from the fantastic, and wonderfully annotated, transcripts by Ariane Devere. They can be found at Ariane DeVere's Livejournal and I recommend giving them a read for the sheer pleasure of her little asides. http://arianedevere.livejournal.com/

John Watson knew Sherlock Holmes better than any person alive. The man's intellect may have towered above his own, were you to ask the detective, but John understood people, and Sherlock in particular, with the same intuitiveness that his friend applied to crime solving. So it was with great surprise that John observed his friend that February day.

In the years since his return from Afghanistan, he had used his blog as a means of catharsis, not only for the enumeration of his and Sherlock's _frankly ridiculous_ adventures. There were dozens of hidden entries. Saved, not to the blog service servers, but in a word processing document on his laptop. A digital journal the world would never see, where his thoughts and feelings were unfiltered and unedited.

He knew that Sherlock had read them - the man had no respect for boundaries - but until today, that hadn't mattered. John sat staring at his newest composition and realized that it couldn't be left where his friend and former flatmate might discover it. He selected the entirety of the text and hit backspace, deleting it from the screen. With a sigh dredged from the deepest part of him, John looked around his small, neat desk, and pulled out a new composition book. Opening it to the fly page, he wrote in his steady but nearly illegible hand;

" _The Personal Journal of Dr. John H. Watson_."

He turned to the next page and on the pale blue lines began to record his thoughts.

 _We'd just had a message from Greg that he had a case for us. Since Sherlock's return from his abbreviated exile, there haven't been any leads on the Moriarty message_.

John had paused before writing about Moriarty. While he fully intended to hide this book and make no one aware of its existence, he knew enough that no information that existed as a physical recording was ever fully safe. The experience with Magnussen taught him that. He had to lay false trails, even here. So he wouldn't mention that they had managed to identify a cell of freelance hackers with a loose association with Moriarty's network. John couldn't do anything to compromise the work being done to take them down.

He went on to describe the day that weighed heavily on his mind.

_Lestrade hasn't been allowed to consult with Sherlock on active cases for a long while, even though his name was cleared. But he's had some older cases that he has allowed Sherlock to tidy up for him. We met him on the site of a rather grisly double murder. It was in the papers last year._

A professor and his mistress were found dead in his home. Their bodies had been hung by meat hooks and butchered like cattle. The scene, for all its gore, had been clean of evidence linking the crime to anyone. The professor was well-liked amongst his colleagues and students. His wife hadn't been surprised to discover the affair as she'd been having her own; the momentum of the twenty-five year marriage and a punitive prenup kept her and her husband together, their union extant only on paper and there was no resentment from her. The mistress was a schoolteacher, a beloved only daughter, and had no enemies.

The professor's wife had been living with her boyfriend and had wanted to just sell the house. Because of a suit brought by the professor's parents against his widow, the property had remained empty in the year since Dr. Brown's death.

_An estate agent had gone to the house because it was finally going to be sold. When she got to the house, the room where the bodies had been found was completely stripped to the framing. The plasterboard, the copper piping in the walls, the electrical wiring, the white oak flooring - every bit of it was gone, only the framing and subfloor remained. Lestrade called in Sherlock when the Met decided to treat the case only as one of many copper pipe thefts and shelved it. Something didn't seem right to him._

Sherlock and John exited the cab and made their way up the short stone walkway that ran through the neglected front lawn of the property. They didn't stop to knock but pushed open the door and walked in to the back of the house where Lestrade awaited them. Without saying a word, he pulled out his magnifier and started examining the room. Lestrade and John stood fixed in the entry, eyes following Sherlock's movements.

"How's Mary?" asked Greg quietly.

"Miserable. Why do you think I'm here?" John favoured the Detective Inspector with a half-smile. His eyes slightly ringed from exhaustion caused by his heavily pregnant wife exiting their bed multiple times a night. John was a light sleeper after his time at war and the frequent breaks in his sleep were taking their toll. He was beginning to wonder if the third trimester was simply practice for having an infant.

Greg's face broke into a wide grin. "Better you than me. The wife and I are glad to be past those years now."

Sherlock turned to the pair and opened his mouth to comment. Lestrade held up a hand "Shut up, Sherlock. I don't want to hear it."

"I need to see the basement," he said quickly, biting down on his comment about the fact that Lestrade's wife had recently met with a lawyer. Sherlock was just trying to warn him to expect the divorce papers in a few days. People never seemed to appreciate his help with their personal lives.

In the basement, Sherlock found a handful of screws with some wood bits on them,and a sliver of oak flooring, only a few centimetres wide. He pulled on a glove and ran his hand over the joists that held up the subfloor of the murder room then removed it and put it in another envelope.

"Not a single cobweb. Completely clean. This basement has been in continuous use for months. Scratch card from a lottery game that just started in September is under the stairs. There are no spiders, no webs, no mildew which would have been expected based on the wet autumn and the recent rain we've had, with the condition of the foundation. Someone has been living here, and they've gone to quite extraordinary lengths to erase any evidence of who they are. Squatters aren't known for leaving the place clean." He spun around, eyes darting about, observing the basement for anything else. "Two ideas, Lestrade. I'll text you. Come, John."

Not five minutes after their arrival, Sherlock swept out of the house. John bade goodbye to Greg and followed his friend to the kerb where, with his unnatural ability to find a taxi in London, Sherlock was already entering a cab. "Barts' hospital," he told the cabbie before he turned to John. "It might be linked to the Habit case. I'll explain in the lab." He'd used the codeword he and John had devised to be able to discuss the Moriarty network in public. John nodded and dropped into silence for the short ride. They didn't discuss anything to do with that case where they might be overheard.

_Sherlock suspected a meth lab had been moved out days before. He had caught a whiff of an organic solvent in the air and was taking his samples to test for traces of the chemicals used in the manufacturing process to confirm his suspicion. It was late when we got to Bart's lab. I went to push open the door and it resisted opening. Sherlock peered through the long window and paled. I've seen my friend jump off a four storey building. I've seen him kill. It is in the moment a man takes another life that you see who he really is. At least I had always believed so, until this moment. In the fraction of a second before he pushed the door open a bit and squeezed his way into the room, I saw a look in Sherlock's eyes I'd never seen before._

"John! John get in here, it's Molly!"


	2. Chapter 2

The pathologist lay on the floor beside an overturned lab stool, her mobile in her hand. She lay prone on the linoleum, overlarge lab coat spread over her much like the drapes on the corpses she cut up. The comparison made John shudder, when he thought about it later.

There was no obvious trauma, no blood. Some papers had been swept off the table, presumably as she fell. Sherlock had his long fingers pressed to her carotid artery. He nodded to John, indicating she had a pulse. He felt for it himself. "It's weak. We need to get her to A&E." The woman was pale as a ghost and John turned to Sherlock and ordered him to get one of the gurneys from the hall. A few extra beds were always kept near the morgue. When porters brought down bodies from the upper floors of the hospital, they would return to the ward with one of the pre-made, already cleaned beds that were stored in the corridor.

A lock of hair had escaped Molly's simple ponytail and lay over her face. The tall man swept it up behind her ear in one of the most simple, _human_ gestures John had ever seen from him, as he turned to look at the doctor.

"Sherlock, get a bed, we need to get her upstairs." John adopted his commanding tone; the one that even Sherlock - _usually_ \- immediately jumped to obey. He had never been a big man, never had the imposing presence of some of the blokes in his unit, so he had had to learn to bring others into line with his voice alone.

He rose quickly, pocketing the woman's mobile as he did so in a single, smooth movement that John caught only out of the corner of his eye.

John's attention never left Molly. Her breath was slow and shallow, her skin chilly and pale. He kept a hand at her wrist, making sure he didn't lose track of her thready pulse.

Sherlock was at the laboratory door with a bed in a matter of seconds. "Is it safe to move her?" he asked with an uncertainty John rarely heard in the detective's voice.

John nodded and moved his hands to her shoulder. "Better to move her than leave her to get a backboard and brace." Together, he and Sherlock rolled her onto her back. Her limbs flopped heavily as they turned her. She moaned quietly, but did not stir. The two men lifted her together, using her long lab coat as a sling to avoid jostling her body too much. As gently as possible, they deposited her on the gurney.

"Do you have any idea what happened?" he asked Sherlock urgently as they turned down a quiet corridor. As they jogged down the hall, the murmur of distant voices met their ears, growing louder by the step.

His lips pressed into a thin line, Sherlock's eyes were fixed on Molly's still form but flickered up briefly to meet John's. "She's pregnant. Twelve weeks."

John's eyes widened, but his step didn't falter, his training taking over. While fainting was common in early pregnancy, Molly appeared to be in hypovolemic distress. With no apparent external bleeding, he knew what it meant. As they entered the lift, John took a moment to look up from his patient to the man at his side. His eyes were wide and focused. His hands gripped the side rail of the bed a bit tighter than necessary.

The lift doors opened and they turned the last corner into the observation ward of the Accidents and Emergency department. John called over to Webber, a man he knew from a brief stint locumming at the same surgery. The man dropped his chart on the desk at John's look and rushed over. "Henry, call up to OB. Suspected 12 week tubal rupture, 33 year old, found down in the lab. Tell them to prep a theatre and for God's sake put her somewhere private before people gossip," he panted. The adrenaline was still thrumming through his veins after the mad rush to A&E.

John looked over at Sherlock who was focused and oddly quiet. He stood silently by the side of Molly's bed and followed it as Webber wheeled the gurney into a nearby curtained off observation area. The slim man's chest rose and fell heavily as he steadied his breathing, having run just as fast as John to get here.

Henry Webber knew the small woman from the few times he'd encountered her in the hospital canteen. The quiet pathologist had smiled at him in passing a few times, though she rarely said more than a brief 'hi.' A nod to a nearby nurse who was listening had her on the phone to obstetrics in moments. Henry removed her arm from the lab coat sleeve before placing a cuff around it. The whirring of the machine was punctuated with the still-ragged breaths of the two serious men who had wheeled the pathologist in through the staff door.

"BP's very low." His eyes darted up to John and over to the man in the long coat beside him. "Be back in a 'mo." He existed the cubicle and returned in a moment with a wheeled point-of-care ultrasound. "I need to scan her, can you step out?"

"Sure," John said quietly. He glanced at his friend, who didn't move, and tapped the taller man on the shoulder. "Come on, Sherlock. She should have some privacy."

"No." Quietly, dangerously enunciated. Sherlock's eyes flashed, and his stony visage broke for a moment. There was the slightest tightening around his mouth, and John could see the fight going on behind his friend's eyes. John may not have the deductive skills the detective prized, but he knew people, and he knew fear. In that moment, Sherlock Holmes was afraid. With so few people in the world he could call friend, John knew that the diminutive pathologist mattered to his enigmatic colleague. He relented and stepped outside the curtain.

Sherlock turned and kept his eyes on Molly's face while Webber prepared her for the scan. A nurse bustled in and ordered him aside so she could start an IV. Sherlock stepped neatly out of her way, but didn't avert his gaze from Molly's placid features.

The physician pulled down the elastic-waistband maternity trousers that covered the barely noticeable swelling of the woman's lower abdomen. Had he not been told she was pregnant, he'd have just thought her bloated. He applied the gel and barely had to touch the transducer to her before he could see the free blood. His lips tightened and his brow furrowed. He could see the fetus wriggling in what appeared to be the remains of a tube. The nurse interrupted him to let him know she had IV access. She was attaching a bag of saline when two porters came in and informed them they'd been sent by obstetrics. Henry wiped the gel off of his patient and stood back.

"Tell Morecome that it's definitely a rupture. We'll get her chart done up, yeah? Send it up as soon as it's done." He stood back as the young man unlocked the wheels of the bed and motioned to the sturdy older woman beside him to grab the other side of the bed.

"She'have anything with 'er?" he asked the room.

Breaking his silence, Sherlock said he'd fetch her things from downstairs later. With a curt nod, they wheeled her bed towards the door to the lifts.

John reached out and grabbed Sherlock's sleeve to keep him from following. The detective whirled around, his nostrils flaring momentarily and his mouth opening to order his friend to release him.

"Sherlock, let them take her. She's being taken to theatre. You can't go with her." He seemed to deflate, the fight leaving him as swiftly as it has risen. His head dropped, concealing his face with his loose curls, and his arms went limp at his sides. "Come on. She's in good hands, let's go back to the lab. We've done our part here and we can check in later."

It had been less than fifteen minutes since they had discovered Molly on the floor of the lab and in that time his view of Sherlock shifted monumentally. This was a man who had leaped off a four story building, faked his death for two years, single-handedly taken down an international crime syndicate, and killed an unarmed man all to save the few people he cared for. Despite his protestations, Sherlock was capable of caring quite deeply, and it was etched into his features now, clear as day for John to read. Sherlock shook his head lightly, as if to collect himself.

He spoke softly, his rich voice thick. "Back to the lab. Lestrade will be waiting." He didn't speak directly to John; he face was cast down. After a moment, he took a deep breath and looked up, composed once again.

In silence, the two men returned to the pathology department. John continued past the lab door to the staff lounge to prepare coffee, leaving Sherlock alone in the lab. When he returned a few minutes later, Sherlock had righted the stool and picked up the papers that had been dropped. He sat at one of the laboratory benches, the sample envelopes in front of him, his eyes fixed on the bright blue mobile in his hands. John recognized it as Molly's.

"What are you doing?" John asked as he set the coffee down beside his friend. He took a sip of his own and tried to peer over the long fingers at Molly's mobile screen.

Sherlock returned the phone to his pocket and pulled out his own. "Texting Molly's sister to let her know. She's visiting her in London this week." He typed out a message rapid-fire on his own mobile and quietly returned it to his breast pocket.

"You…" he paused, seeing his friend reach for the paper envelopes. The hand stilled as the detective looked up at John, meeting his eyes for the first time since their earlier arrival in the lab. "You're being considerate. Why? That never happens."

Sherlock scoffed lightly and straightened on his seat. "Molly is a… friend. It does not take my deductive skill to know that she would be distressed to wake up alone in the hospital." After a moment, he added "As a patient." Molly was known to occasionally nap at her desk, a source of some amusement for the detective who slept as little as possible.

"That's not everything." John may not have had his wife's uncanny ability to tell when Sherlock was fibbing, but sometimes he could tell when he wasn't getting the whole truth. Right now, it hung over them clear as could be that something wasn't being said.

After a beat, "No. It's not." He seemed to weigh what he was saying. John so rarely saw Sherlock uncertain except when failing to make sense of the illogical nature of human sentiment. It was disconcerting to see him this way. After a silence that stretched into awkwardness, his hand nervously tapping the envelope containing the flooring fragment against the counter, Sherlock spoke. "It's mine." He ran his hands through his hair and wove his fingers together at the back of his head, his elbows on the counter.

"What? What is?" John's eyes widened as Sherlock's head snapped up. He didn't need an answer. "Oh."

"She told me yesterday." He seemed like he wanted to say more, but stopped himself there, and busied his hands with preparing samples for analysis. John followed suit, and they settled into the familiar hum of lab work.


	3. Chapter 3

"Doctor Hooper," the softly accented English of the ancient Iranian obstetrician edged into her consciousness. Molly's eyes opened and she focused on his gentle, lined face. She had met Dr. Mohammed several times when the man brought bodies down to the pathology lab. Whenever there was a late miscarriage or stillbirth, he insisted on bringing them to her himself wrapped lovingly in a flannel hospital infant blanket, not in a biohazard bag. His gentleness for these small beings was known throughout the hospital, and the other obstetricians frequently allowed him to handle loss patients because of the soft touch he had with them. She knew what it meant that he was here and she was grateful it was him.

Her sinuses felt filled with cement and her throat was sore. _Intubation_? She could feel an IV port taped to her right hand, and her left ached where she could see another had been removed. _Surgery, then._ She could feel the distant ache of opiate-dulled pain and the pull of staples near her pubis.

The fuzziness in her mind was fading quickly, though her limbs still felt heavy, but she cleared her throat and managed to rasp out roughly "Ectopic?" She'd suspected it when the pain in her abdomen exploded. She'd been experiencing some cramps for a few days, but passed them off as round ligament pain. Normal, if aggravating. But as she rose from the lab stool with an autopsy file in her hands, she felt a deep ripping pain and for a moment saw the floor rushing up to meet her. The last thing she knew before she woke up here was hearing John's voice, though she wasn't sure if that was a dream.

The elderly man nodded, handing her a cup of ice water with a straw which she took gratefully. "We had to remove your left tube and ovary last night. You lost nearly two litres of blood into your abdomen. You've had four units. Looks as though you will pull through in short order, though." He paused, patting her arm gently, seeing the pain writ large across her features. "I'm very sorry, Molly. There is no word that can describe your loss. I stayed just to speak with you, to see if there is anything you need, if you have any questions. Do you want us to ring anyone for you?"

His gentle brown eyes bore into her own, offering her what little solace he could. She shook her head, feeling very small in the large bed. "I'm fine and I know what to expect. Thank you, Farouk."

"Your sister has been in to see you," He gestured to the small vase of flowers, the sort sold in the gift shop,on her bedside table. "But she had to leave to get her train."

He turned to walk out, telling her that she was welcome to call him with any questions and once again expressing his condolences. As his hand pulled the door closed, she called after him "Did you send my... Did you send everything to path?"

He poked his head back around and told her, "Of course. But at St Thomas'. It seemed the most reasonable choice, in the circumstances." She let out a breath she didn't know she was holding at his response and thanked him again. He closed the door behind him and left her to her silence.

Ectopic pregnancies ended because they couldn't continue without risking the life of the mother. Molly knew the clinical aspects of it all; she was, after all, a trained physician, even if her patients were all dead. She knew that in all likelihood, the fetus (how odd, she said to herself, to think so clinically) was normal, just in the wrong place. Had it been discovered earlier, she might have avoided surgery, but there was still no hope for the pregnancy. It warmed her a little to know that there would be an analysis to make sure it wasn't some chromosomal or other issue. She wasn't sure if she would feel better if it had a fatal defect or not, but she liked that at least she would know.

She looked out the window at the driving rain diffusing the early morning light. February in London. At least it wasn't snowing, but she could tell it wasn't far off. They'd had a few bursts of snow over the last few months, but nothing that stayed. It was just cold and miserable, an accurate reflection of her current state, she felt.

The reality of the loss started to settle on her. She had only just begun accepting the fact of her pregnancy before it was gone. It was only a week ago she'd cancelled her termination appointment and called the Early Pregnancy Unit for antenatal care. Funny, she thought, how you sometimes end up with exactly what you'd decided you didn't want.

She had come to terms with her decision never to have children a year and a half before. Tom had spent most of their relationship trying to convince her to change her mind because he dreamed of a home full of small versions of himself. Her refusal to reconsider her decision had effectively ended their engagement six months ago, not long after the Watson wedding.

Yet she had ended up pregnant and, no matter her carefully laid "oh shit plan," as she had named it, she'd decided to continue down the path towards motherhood she unexpectedly found herself on. She still wasn't quite sure why all of a sudden the idea had appealed to her.

It was pointless to consider, as the opportunity had passed now anyway. She was nearly 34, down an ovary, and was single with no prospects. She reached into her memory to try to find again her peace with the future she had started planning for herself; one of travel and new experiences, friendships that still allowed her to return home to her quiet flat and her cat each night. No limits, no anchors, and definitely no dependants. But the peace was fleeting; shattered by a ghost of a thought, the faintest wisp of a daydream she had allowed herself a few days ago, of a child with brown curls falling in front of wide blue eyes, smiling up at her from behind a book.

Molly relaxed her shoulders, having curled in on herself as she considered her situation. Her abdominal muscles ached. The stark room she found herself in provided nothing on which she could latch her mind to keep from thinking over recent events. The loss of her pregnancy. The genius child that would have been. She reached up to wipe away the single tear that had run down to the point of her chin. It wouldn't do to cry. No good could come of succumbing to the sadness that lurked just outside her conscious thoughts. She could feel it testing the edges, trying to consume her. Molly refused to allow it.

Down the hall, she heard the mewling cry of a neonate, bracketed by the rumble of adoring comments from the no doubt happy family that had come to visit, too distant to pick out the words. Molly knew she would have been admitted to the obstetrics and gynaecology ward, though this was the first evidence of it she heard. It seemed cruel to put her here, but there was nowhere more appropriate in the hospital that they could put a woman recovering from gynaecological surgery.

She let her eyes focus back outside. Wet snow now clung to the windows of her room. The words of a poem she'd written in her angst-ridden teenage years came back to her as the sadness that had been creeping around the edges settled firmly at the forefront of her thoughts.

_I see with my mere mortal eyes what only gods may know,_

_The truth of nature's penance cast in softly falling snow._

_Turn my eyes into the sun and watch it burn away,_

_Here in the quiet places, where even devils dare to dream._

She'd dared to dream of a life for herself that she had once broken a man's heart to refuse. It seemed her due to suffer for it.

The smooth button of the call bell clicked softly under her thumb and she heard the faint chime at the nurse's station. Molly let her eyes roam over the bare room, the empty bed beside hers, an empty cot stored in the corner. Everything empty. Posters about breastfeeding tacked up beside hand washing notices. An ignored meal tray - definitely awful - sat on the rolling table beside her bed. She wanted to go home.


	4. Chapter 4

Sherlock had sent John home hours ago. His wife's nocturnal disruptions had left the retired soldier exhausted. He was doing a fair job of hiding it and pushing through, but his physical signs were loud and clear. His blinks were fractionally longer and the small capillaries in his eyes were dilated. He was drinking so much caffeine his hands had a slight tremor.

Looking up from the GLC readout on the lab computer, Sherlock saw the grey daylight through the high, narrow basement windows. He stood and rolled his shoulders and neck, working out the tightness that always resulted after so long at the bench. The red numerals on the lab clock informed him it was just after 6am. Not long past sunrise. He could hear the rain hitting the ground outside.

In the early hours, he'd confirmed his suspicions. The dust was contaminated with vapours from methamphetamine production chemicals and contained human skin cells of varying freshness, confirming that there had recently been people staying in the house for an extended period. Tiny grains of borosilicate glass were embedded in the splinter of oak flooring he'd retrieved, and there were signs of exposure to caustic vapours on the cabinet screws. There'd been some sort of spill, probably as the clandestine chemists tried to clean up so they could leave the property.

The use of borosilicate glassware and purified methylamine told him that these were no amateurs. It was confirmed by the fact that they were alerted before the estate agent showed up and had the organizational ability to remove even the wallboard, which would have been saturated enough with the chemicals that even the Met would have been able to see it had been a drugs lab. That they managed to do it without alerting the neighbours even further supported the conclusion that they had outside help and outside money. There were only two major players in London at the moment, but this had the feel of only one.

Moriarty's network had been intimately entwined with drugs operations the world over. It was their primary, though not only, revenue source. James Moriarty had owned, in one way or another, most of Afghanistan's poppy fields and a significant chunk of the - very legitimate - European pharmaceuticals market. It seemed appropriate to him that the madman owned a warzone and the companies sending free drugs to the refugees from the wars.

Sherlock knew Moriarty was dead. He'd had the opportunity on more than one occasion to collect DNA samples, and Mycroft had compared the body from Barts' rooftop with samples from various sources. They would not repeat the mistake they'd made with The Woman. All of the samples - official and otherwise - matched the body. There was no doubt the man was permanently dead, but Sherlock had discovered in the past few weeks that he hadn't destroyed the network as completely as he had thought when his brother had pulled him out of Serbia.

The use of an uninhabited house instead of the professional manufacturing operations the network once supported for their designer drugs told him that the producers, in this case, were not completely affiliated with the criminal network. The professionalism of their activities implied some support, but they would not have been mixing meth in a suburban kitchen had the full weight of the organization been behind them. He wondered if it was a try-out.

During his time away, he'd had to prove his worth to the organization to find his way in. Being a graduate chemist had served him well as he integrated himself into the drugs operations. He was able to follow the money and the supply lines quietly. It had taken him three months for his _audition_ to be picked up by Moriarty's men. They'd found him in a similar setup, and for a while furnished him with better supplies before he had proven himself enough that he was welcomed into the heart of the operation. Another year of working his way up the chain - crime syndicates did tend to have a rather high attrition rate, so the slight increase in the rate of mysterious upper management deaths didn't alert anyone - positioned him perfectly to gather the information which permitted his six month field mission to tear down each network hub individually.

In the sixteen months since his return to London, he had distracted himself well enough. First the bombing he averted, then John and Mary's wedding that summer. He'd had a handful of private cases that occupied his time once his return was publicized, most only moderately interesting. Many taken just to spare him from boredom; hardly challenging enough to actually require his input. It wasn't until John's wedding and meeting Jeanine, days after Lady Smallwood had contacted him for help, that he finally took on a case that rated above a seven.

He knew John had noticed his hesitation. Since his resurrection, Sherlock hadn't returned to the most dangerous work he'd had before. The absence of cases from NSY had played a part in that. Mycroft hadn't brought him any more _government jobs_ since last November, except for the work in Eastern Europe that had been co-opted to serve as his aborted sentence for shooting the news magnate. Magnussen had not been the first unarmed man he had eliminated. Sherlock wondered dispassionately if he would be the last.

The Magnussen case weighed on him. The man was dead, and with him vast swaths of information that could be put to nefarious use, but Sherlock knew Magnussen's business was not only in news. He could feel a connection forming in his mind between the journalism empire and the samples that sat on the bench in front of him. It just wasn't completely clear yet. There was _something_ but he needed more before the nebulous threads between Moriarty and Magnussen would solidify.

_"A_ _nd every person has their pressure point; someone that they want to protect from harm_ _,"_ Moriarty had told him. The spider and the rich man, their methods so very different but at their core, the same information, the same basic strategy of exploitation.

He had protected John's pressure point and, by extension, his own. One of them.

His thoughts, unbidden, travelled to the third floor, where his unexpected _pressure point_ most likely lay.

Sherlock could count on one hand the number of people he considered friends. He had railed against the idea for so long, but had finally let John's influence sink into his thoughts during his time in India, where he first realized he missed his friends. John, of course, Mrs. Hudson, Greg Lestrade - for all his teasing of the detective inspector, Sherlock knew his name perfectly well - and now Mary. While they had had their ups and downs and near-fatal shootings, John's wife had welcomed Sherlock into her life with surprising ease and he found the former assassin to be a loyal friend. Anyone willing to shoot him in the liver to save him deserved his friendship.

He was carefully dancing around thoughts of the other woman who had killed him, though he knew he'd have to sort them out before long. He drummed his fingers on the white tabletop and let out a huff of breath.

Unfolding himself from his slouched position at the lab table, he rose and pocketed his sample envelopes once again. He quickly saved his analyses to his USB key fob and dropped it into his inner breast pocket. He shut off the computer and strode out of the lab. As he exited the building towards the cluster of skips - one of the few places on the property hospital security wouldn't harass him for lighting up - he tapped a fag out of the packet he'd brought with him. As he lifted his head to light his cigarette, he saw her.

Hair splattered by the heavy, wet snowflakes; over large coat and horrid pink-striped scarf wrapped tightly around her thin frame, Molly Hooper puffed out a jet of blue-grey smoke. Her long hospital gown was gathered under her coat, but he could see the plastic patient identification bracelets at her wrist. She looked down at the lit cigarette in her hand, pensive. Sherlock lit his own and walked slowly towards her.

"You don't smoke." The woman jumped slightly and her eyes snapped to his face.

She shrugged and looked back across the lot towards the rapidly increasing traffic. "I used to, in uni. Seemed fitting today." She took another drag and inhaled slowly, closing her eyes as if to savour it.

He could see in how she stood that she was weak. Her left arm held tightly to her side, as if she were refusing to let it drift over her abdomen, shoulders hunched and knees bent slightly. She was still in pain. Her eyes were sunken, not inflamed, so she hadn't been crying. The slight tremble of her hands told him she had been given some morphine and it was making it hard for her to cope with the chilly air.

Her eyes had turned to him as he took her in, reading her condition as clearly as if he held her chart. His eyes met hers and he opened his mouth to speak. "I'm.."

She cut him off. "Don't, just don't. Don't... say you're sorry. Don't apologize to me, Sherlock." She swallowed thickly and averted her gaze again. "It wasn't your fault. It wasn't anybody's fault."

"That's not what I am saying. I just want to... I..." he had a hard time gathering his thoughts, something that had happened with alarming frequency in the last few months, and glanced down at his feet as he spoke, feeling rather like a schoolboy called before the headmaster. "I'm sorry for what I said to you the other day."

Her eyes were hard when he looked back to her. "What, for implying that I actually tricked _you - you, of all people!_? Or for calling me stupid and selfish? Maybe for telling me what a horrid mum I'd be? Doesn't matter much now, does it?" She spat out the last, her lip curling. The colour had risen in her frighteningly pale cheeks and she wobbled slightly, her ire stressing her weakened body. Sherlock reached out to steady her but she smacked his hand away. "I told you I don't need anything from you and I meant it. Just stay the fuck away from me, Sherlock Holmes. You've done enough."

She threw down the last of her cigarette and left a very confused detective behind her as she walked back to the hospital and swiped her ID card at the door to let her in.


	5. Chapter 5

The sharply punctuated swaying melody of Vivaldi's _l'Invierno allegro_ sang across Baker Street as John stepped out of the cab. It was always The Seasons when he was in a mood. John had never had much exposure to classical music. Not until he'd moved in with a master violinist prone to fits of artistic temper. He'd learned to identify his friend's state of mind by the music he played; it spoke more clearly than Sherlock ever did.

He crossed the street and let himself in, the complex music growing louder as he stepped in and stomped the snow from his shoes. John was finally well rested after Mary insisted he sleep on the sofa for a few nights. He'd never been so relieved to be kicked out of his own bed before. John had been ruminating on his friend's behaviour from the other day. His current choice of music made it rather apparent that he was still not himself.

John moved to climb the stairs and the music changed. He recognized the ebullient opening of Figaro's Aria. Sherlock had teased him relentlessly for the last year about his failed experiment with facial hair. Selections from The Barber of Seville became John's own personal soundtrack. He revised his opinion - Sherlock couldn't be that bad off if he could spare a moment to mock John's former stylistic choice.

John walked in the open door of 221B. The music stopped and Sherlock stood framed by the tall window, looking out at the street.

"Wiggins should be back shortly with some samples for me. I hope you didn't tell Lestrade to come along or Wiggins will run off. I _need_ those samples."

John raised an eyebrow, long having given up on trying to convince Sherlock to stick to purely legal methods of crime solving, but this went a step too far. "No, Sherlock. No. You are not having drugs brought here."

"I am not having drugs delivered. Wiggins is bringing me product samples so I can compare their manufacturing processes to the traces I found from the murder house. I'm not actually going to _use_ any of it, I just want to analyze it. I only ever use opiates."

"Used!" John corrected, his heart jumping into his throat. better not have started. "It bloody well better be past tense, Sherlock. Do I have to call Mycroft again? Or Molly?"

Sherlock's expression shuttered and then he sneered "Of course I'm not using again. How many times do I need to tell you that _it was for a case_. Have you seen any sign, anything whatsoever? I'm clean!"

"So you're having methamphetamine samples brought to you for a case. Like how you strung yourself out on heroin in a filthy hovel _for a case_. Have you thought of, I don't know, _not_ buying illegal drugs for your cases?" Now he was shouting. Sherlock had relapsed twice in the nearly five years John had known him. Each time _for a case._ Even John could deduce that Sherlock was intentionally avoiding the alternative options to getting high for his cases. Sherlock's excuses were as transparent as the pitiful wailing of the drugs seekers that came into his surgery begging oxycodone for migraines. The same tactics as every other addict. Deny, excuse, and minimize.

"It's the only way to find them, John! I have to find the exact product so I can find the manufacturers." Bill Wiggins showed up at the door, looking bedraggled as ever, though he wore a much finer shirt under his filthy, disheveled coat, and he sported expensive-looking leather gloves. Clearly Sherlock had kept the former dealer in his employ. Sherlock strode past John "Not now, _Billy_." He swung the door closed in front of the startled younger man and turned back to his friend.

"There is something larger going on here, larger than a single meth lab in a vacant house. This is the first contact we've had with the money. We have to get to the money, John, because it's what keeps the whole operation turning." He was gesticulating wildly, his unbuttoned cuffs flapping with each movement. "Don't you see? The drugs are paying for it all!"

"What 'it'? Last I knew we had a couple of teenaged hackers and a meth lab, both somehow distantly linked to Moriarty. Back up and tell me what the hell is going on!"

" _Everything_ , John!" He gestured to the evidence wall, where dark lines connected the various papers pinned to the plaster. Yellow sticky notes added commentary here and there. In the centre, a photo of Moriarty and another of Magnussen. Lord Moran was off to the left. Scribbled comments - places and dates, names and the occasional question - drew similarities with them.

"What does Magnussen have to do with Moriarty? And the underground terrorist network? That was a year and a half ago, Sherlock, and Magnussen and Moriarty are both dead. Bullets to the head tend to be permanent." John shook his head. None of the small comments Sherlock had scrawled made any sense to him.

"It's not that simple! I thought I had taken down the network but I was wrong, I was wrong and it is still out there. Their little message to England last month wasn't the work of hackers trying to impress what's left of Moriarty's syndicate. That's what the Home Office and Mycroft concluded, but it's not. There's more going on here! Magnussen and Moriarty were linked - there's just hints but don't you SEE?" He rubbed his hands in frustration through his hair, then grabbed his mobile off the desk and fired off a succession of texts, the clicking sounds merging together.

"Okay. Right. When did you sleep last?"

Click click click click click. "It doesn't _matter_. I need to work."

"You've been working on this case for six weeks, but you've been sleeping." John thought back to the past few days. He knew Sherlock hadn't slept on Sunday night, when they'd been at the hospital. It was Wednesday morning, and John could tell that Sherlock definitely hadn't slept since he'd last seen him. His eyes were darting over the mobile screen as his fingers flew over the buttons, but John could see the slight puffiness of the shadows under Sherlock's eyes, the subtle bounce as he shifted his weight from leg to leg. "Jesus, Sherlock. You haven't slept since Friday night, have you?"

John reached over and grabbed the phone out of his friend's hand. "Hey!"

"Bed. Now. Or I _will_ call Mycroft and tell him you've been taking amphetamines to stay awake."

"I am clean!" Sherlock roared, reaching for his mobile. John deftly sidestepped him and slid it into his trouser pocket.

"I believe you haven't taken amphetamines, but your brother probably won't. You know Mycroft will jump on any excuse to make absolutely sure you aren't using. Do you really want Anderson and his fan club back here, poking through the flat again, fawning all over you?" Sherlock stared at John, his mouth working. _He must be exhausted,_ John thought, _for me to get one up on him_. _This never works._

Sherlock huffed and folded his arms across his chest. "Fine," he bit out. "At least make sure there's biscuits to go with my tea when I wake up." Without a further word, Sherlock stomped down the hall to his bedroom, slamming the door behind him.

John huffed out a breath and sat down at the desk. Sherlock had an almost unnatural ability to drop off to sleep in seconds when he gave in. As well practiced as John was at going long periods without sleep - it was impossible to make it through medical training and then army life without developing some skill with staying awake for days - he'd never quite mastered the ability to subsist for days on the minutes-long catnaps that the detective had down to a science. Five days straight awake was pushing it even for Sherlock though, no matter how many recharging naps he took. John listened carefully for the gentle snoring that indicated Sherlock had fallen into actual sleep.

Sherlock refused to believe that he actually snored. John had mentioned it to his friend once and had actually seen him appear offended at the suggestion. It was the first time the retired soldier had ever seen his flatmate affronted. When he faked sleeping, which he had done a number of times when John bossed him around much like he just did, he never snored right. John's deductive skills had certainly improved thanks to Sherlock.

It didn't take long. As soon as he was certain that his friend was asleep, John pulled out Sherlock's mobile. He'd not locked it and it hadn't been long enough for the auto-lock to engage. John selected the mobile browser application and opened up his history.

A little known fact about the detective was how technologically inept he was. For all his towering intellect, his website still looked like something dragged out of 1999 and he was rubbish with computer security. He had access to very secure systems when he needed them for sensitive matter, but his cases were usually worked on his low-end laptop and his ageing Blackberry. The detective knew well enough how to use his mobile and navigate his email and the web-based software that built his website, but for anything more complicated he'd always asked John who was marginally better with technology than he. There were some things, like emotions and computers, that just evaded Sherlock's considerable mental strengths, and that was where John came in.

He scrolled through Sherlock's browser history, looking for any signs he might be back on the forum he'd found Wiggins' crack house on. The underbelly of the internet, where you could indeed find anything. He didn't see anything out of he ordinary, just the usual police reports, weather forecast, various random bits and bobs related to cases he'd looked up while running around the city.

He saw a cluster of history entries on child maintenance and custody. John arched an eyebrow. He was dreadfully curious about what had gone on with Molly, and had come over with the express intent of asking Sherlock about it until the man had blindsided him with talk of a drug delivery. He was fairly certain he had the basic facts correct - Molly had been pregnant with Sherlock's child until a few days ago - but in isolation, they just didn't make any sense at all. That Sherlock was actually looking up information to do with custody arrangements baffled him even more. There were few people John knew that were as poorly suited to parenthood as his best friend. His alcoholic sister was probably the only one lower down the list. Mycroft, possibly, though he was oddly paternal towards his younger brother. If being paternal included sending him off on suicide missions.

He flipped over to Sherlock's texts and, scanning through the recent messages, saw nothing to indicate his friend had reentered London's drugs scene - aside from a few business-like texts with Bill Wiggins. He exited to the home screen and set the mobile down on Sherlock's desk.

The whole situation confused him, and he resolved to ask Sherlock about it as soon as he woke up. He had the day off today, and Mary had shoved him out of the house once he'd awoken so she could indulge in her nesting frenzy undisturbed. So John reclined in his chair - it would always be _his_ chair - and looked over at the evidence wall to try to sort out Sherlock's thought process on the case. Giving it up as a bad job after a few deeply frustrating minutes, he pulled out his own mobile to play Angry Birds.


	6. Chapter 6

Late afternoon sunlight was breaking through the grey clouds when Sherlock woke. He must have slept at least seven hours - considerably more than he could usually tolerate at a time. His mouth felt fuzzy and his head throbbed a bit, unused to such an extended period of rest.

He shuffled out of his bedroom and made for the sitting room, detouring on the way to brush his teeth. Mary Watson stood at his sink, leaning over her heavily gravid abdomen to turn off the tap, having just filled the kettle. "Where's John?" he asked.

Mary reached for the box of tea bags Sherlock always kept just slightly out of reach of his shorter friends. "Oh, he'll be back. Come get your own bleeding tea, Sherlock. I'm too fat to be doing this for you."

She abandoned the tea things on the counter and waddled gracelessly into the living room.

"Did you bring any biscuits?" His hands went through the motions of preparing the tea service without any thought paid to this most basic skill of English life. Before reading and writing, there was brewing.

"Over by the refrigerator. "

"Oo, chocolate." He favoured Mary with a true smile, his eyes crinkling at the corners. He noticed she was sitting in his chair instead of her husband's. John had warned him explicitly not to correct Mary in any way these days, but it rankled him. That was _his_ chair. The kettle boiled just then and he finished up his preparations and carried the tray into the sitting room.

"Why are you here and not John?" He didn't intend it to come out as harshly as it must have sounded, but this was Mary. She understood.

She munched on her biscuit, delaying a moment before responding. "He went to see Molly." Sherlock's expression froze. "She's having a rough time of it and her sister has already gone home. John wanted to make sure she was okay."

Sherlock nodded, feeling the weight of Mary's gaze on him as a companionable silence stretched between them. _Did Mary absolutely have to look through him the way his mother did_? It was disconcerting how so many of the women in his life had this ability. It aggravated him.

"From what I hear, you really should be the one looking in on her," Mary said neutrally, reaching over to pour herself some tea. Of course John had told her.

"Absolutely not," he said flatly. "There are few things that would worsen the situation more than me seeing that woman again."

" _That woman,_ Sherlock?" Her voice flared with a sudden anger and rose gradually as she went on. "That's how you refer to your friend - your oldest friend, I might add - who is in hospital, recovering from major surgery because one of the most horrible things a woman can experience has happened to her. She is spending all day in a room at her workplace with her coworkers gossiping about her. That girl spent days at your bedside last fall and you owe her your life. I know little niceties evade you, Sherlock, but the least you could do is visit her in the bloody hospital!"

"I know! I know I should, alright?" He ran his hands furiously through his hair, bouncing his left leg in a nervous motion. "She told me to leave her alone. To 'stay the fuck away from' her, if you want a direct quote. I have the case that demands my attention anyway. She doesn't want me there, and I can be of use here."

The anger seemed to dissipate quickly from Mary's expression as she took in the sight of him. He was a ball of nervous energy, just like before her wedding, only more pronounced. "Oh, Sherlock, you don't know anything about women. What stupid thing did you say to her?" Her question was a sigh, delivered with the knowledge that somehow, he'd managed to muck up what must have been one of the most important conversations of his life.

He jumped up from his chair and stalked over to the window. "What does it _matter_? None of this is any of yours or John's business anyway. Don't you have enough to be worrying yourself over?"

She ran her hand over the swell of her abdomen. "This one won't be along for at least another eight weeks so right now I'm worrying about you. John said you didn't sleep for five days. Obviously you're not alright, and don't try telling me it's the case. You know that won't work. What did you say?" Mary was looking at him kindly, though her expression was marred for a moment when she winced. She poked her belly and said with fondness, "Stop it, you."

Ignoring her query, Sherlock grabbed his packet of cigarettes from his desk and went in search of his lighter. He had left it around here somewhere. "You might want to leave."

"I live in London; five minutes around a cigarette can't be worse for her than nine months in this air. You won't make me leave. I want you to tell me what happened." Her eyebrows had risen in matched peaks and she looked at him over the rim of her spectacles. She had to abandon the use of contacts a few weeks back as her pregnancy had caused them to irritate her eyes.

Evasion attempt aside, Sherlock knew better than to smoke around Mary so he put down the cigarette packet and abandoned his search for a lighter, dropping heavily into John's chair. It never felt right to sit in this one. The perspective was all wrong. He shot a venomous look at Mary who was settled deeply in his comfortable leather chair. He spoke rapidly, hoping she'd leave him alone once she knew.

"I spent a few nights at Molly's flat after I'd got out of hospital. John was staying here when you two were rowing - _honestly_ , it wasn't like you'd shot _him -_ and his moping was irritating. Be glad you weren't here to suffer it." Mary's expression made it clear that the months during which her husband refused to speak to her were not something about which she wanted to be reminded.

He went on. "On Saturday, Molly informed me she was pregnant and had cancelled her appointment to terminate the pregnancy. I said _something stupid_ , as you put it, though I think my reaction was entirely appropriate in the circumstances and she slapped me - she's made quite a habit of that of late - and then the pregnancy was over so it didn't matter anymore. Is your morbid curiousity about the state of my personal life satisfied now?"

She pursed her lips and hmmed before taking a sip of her tea. Sherlock's aggravation was growing. "What did you say to her?"

"It doesn't matter!" he shouted. Mrs. Hudson bustled in at that moment, carrying a tea tray.

"Oh! The neighbours, Sherlock! Hello, Mary. How's our little one doing?" The older woman set down the tea tray on the kitchen counter and beamed a smile at Mary. "You've made tea already, I see."

"Baby's active as ever, Mrs. Hudson," Mary responded. Mrs. Hudson had stepped over and motioned to Mary's belly, asking wordlessly if she could feel. "Be my guest. Nobody at the surgery even bothers asking."

Sherlock stood watching the two women. This crooning over babies in-utero baffled him. Small, helpless creatures that didn't do anything of use. Little more than parasites using hormones to ensure their continued survival. Dull. Children were far more interesting once they could speak.

"Oh that one's a footballer for certain. How far along are you now, Mary? Any names yet?"

"Thirty-two weeks. It feels like much longer, though. And no, no names. We can't agree on anything. John wants it to be a surprise to everyone when she's born anyway." She favoured the woman with a tired smile and made a small noise of protest when her belly shifted one way as her daughter turned around.

"That's sweet, my dear. Must be off - I just stopped by with the tea." She turned to Sherlock as she stood. He was typing away on his mobile, pointedly ignoring the two women. "Sherlock, you be gentle with Mary. She's in a delicate state and shouldn't have to deal with your shouting."

"Do shut up Mrs. Hudson," he muttered without looking up, his voice infused with some affection. She smacked him on the knee with the hand towel she carried and exited the flat.

After they heard the door close downstairs, Mary's gentle gaze fell on Sherlock again. "You're not the first man to react horribly to an unexpected pregnancy. If you want back into her good graces - or the lab - you're going to have to apologize."

"I did apologize. She wouldn't hear it." He was a bit crestfallen, no longer angry. Mary had a way of getting to him and he knew this must be why John had sent her to be here when he woke. It was also frightfully obvious that John was making a pointed statement about the subject matter by sending his pregnant wife.

"She's hurting. What she's going through is something you will never understand, but she needs people. Even you. Especially you." Sherlock filed away the deduction that Mary had been pregnant and experienced a loss before. The certainty with which she discussed it spoke volumes.

Sherlock leaned back, and stared at the ceiling. He spoke quietly, hesitating over his own words. "I only ever hurt her. I'm not going to hurt her again. The best thing I can do for Molly is stay away."

"That's crap, Sherlock. Utter crap. You keep trying to run away from people to protect them. Stop running. She needs you, and from the look of you, you need her." She rose awkwardly, holding onto the arms of the chair tightly to pull herself up. She pulled a piece of paper off his nearby desk and walked back towards him.

"You're hurting too and everyone who loves you can see it. Stop fooling yourself and get to the hospital."

She let the paper drop onto the table. The paper had been crumpled but someone had flattened it. Notes marked in pencil on the staffs gleamed slightly in the strip of afternoon sunlight that lit the table and the title was scrawled in Sherlock's neat hand across the top.

_Holmes' Lullaby_


	7. Chapter 7

Molly was laying back on a high table in the diagnostic imaging suite. Her lower abdomen was exposed and a sheet covered her below. Dr. Carter Morecome sat beside her. He knew how awkward it was for Molly to be a patient in her own hospital, so he hadn't trusted this to one of the many sonographers on hand in the hospital. For this, she was grateful.

Five days post-op, the swelling hadn't even started to abate and Molly's blood pressure and laboratory values hadn't normalized. Her obstetrician was very concerned and wanted to re-scan her to ensure there was no continuing leak of blood that they had missed.

"Just relax, Molly. This won't take long. Do you want me to print any images for your collection?" Morecome was one of the physicians who provided her photos of interesting cases. He'd pointed her to _Figure 1,_ a social media mobile app that documented absurd and fascinating medical conditions. She was a regular contributor, as were a number of pathologists around the world. Carter knew her well enough to know she would enjoy being able to post an image of her own.

He pulled the bottle of coupling gel out of the warming pocket and squirted a stream of it just below her incision. "I'll be careful," he told her. "It might be a bit uncomfortable but let me know if anything hurts, alright?" She nodded. Her colleague pulled the transducer over and placed it gently into the gel.

He turned it downwards and his mouth opened in an O of surprise. Molly had been focused on a spot on the far wall, wanting to avoid the pitying looks that Carter had been failing to suppress. She saw his expression change out of the corner of her eye and was turning her head to him when she caught sight of the wide, pale blue eyes peeking between the blinds to the hall window that hadn't been completely closed. The door handle turned and Morecome spun around on the tall chair as Sherlock Holmes stepped into he room.

"Sorry, occupied. Suite four should be..." he clearly recognized the tall man immediately and glanced sideways at Molly, who had gone wide-eyed. "Should I ring a nurse to get rid of him, Molly?"

"No, thank you, Carter. He'll just be going now." She drew in her lips, struggling to sit up despite the protests of her compromised abdominal muscles. "Get out, Sherlock."

He had only glanced briefly at Molly since entering his eyes fixed on the monitor. "We need to talk. I should have been here earlier, but I want to talk to you."

She sighed heavily. "I'm sure you know where my room is. Wait for me there. I'll be done here soon." She lay back down on the padded table.

"Actually, I think I've found the problem already." Carter swung the monitor around to her. "Look at this."

It had been over a decade since Molly had needed to read ultrasound scans regularly. She consulted with radiologists even for simple imaging purposes. But even she, with a long unpractised eye, could see the outline of one very fully formed fetus surrounded by the thickened uterine wall in the screenshot Morecome was showing her.

She glanced over at Sherlock hesitantly. His expression gave nothing away. He looked back and forth from the monitor to her face, but he was otherwise unmoving.

"I need some more measurements, but I believe the continued swelling had to do with this little one hanging on here." He smiled widely at Molly. "Mr. Holmes," he turned to the man who appeared struck silent. "Could you please step out so we can continue?"

Molly pulled her gown back up again and laid flat. "It's okay, he can stay."

Carter glanced from the pathologist to the consulting detective whose adventures he had read with interest for years. He had made his own deductions, but said nothing, turning the monitor back so he could complete the scan. He touched the button to turn on the wall-mounted monitor that showed Molly what he was seeing. Sherlock moved to the side of the small room, standing almost as far from the patient as he could but where he could see the other monitor.

Replacing the transducer on her abdomen, he hit the button to save the still image to Molly's record and return to the live view. "Here we go," he said happily. "This is the best part of the job - being surprised by things like this. Over here, you can see where the adnexa was closed when we removed your tube, Molly. This bub is definitely where it should be, though. I've only ever seen one of these before, Molly my dear."

"If you have only seen one fetus before, I have my doubts as to your qualifications, Doctor Morecome," Sherlock drawled.

The physician smiled at him, perfectly straight teeth gleaming in the low light coming from the monitor. "A _surviving_ heterotopic pregnancy, Mr. Holmes."

Molly piped up, her voice quavering a bit. "It's where there's fetuses in more than one location. Usually one tubal and one intrauterine." She could see the image on the screen of a little human twitching and turning in the black pool of fluid around it in her uterus.

"Just so. Usually two, but I saw a set where one triplet was abdominal and wasn't discovered until the c-section." His eyes had been roving over the screen and he had clicked several buttons as he'd gone. "Length and anatomical measures are good, nuchal translucency is normal. Heart rate is 159. Congratulations, Molly. You appear to have one healthy baby still in there. Lucky bean, that one. Do you want to hear the heartbeat?"

She nodded, then realized he'd not be able to see her well in the dark. "Yes," she choked out, embarrassed by the emotion in that one word.

He clicked a button on the panel, and the rapid whoosh-whoosh-whoosh of the Doppler echo filled the room, sounding almost like the galloping of tiny hooves. She felt tears well in her eyes and run down her temples into her hair. Eyes closed, she allowed the sound to consume her and she breathed heavily to suppress a sob.

She looked up when she felt a hand slide into hers. She saw Sherlock standing beside her, staring at the screen in open wonder, his head cocked slightly to the side, a look she had only once seen on his face before, after she had pulled him into a fierce hug following his death defying dive off of the roof of this very hospital.

Carter Morecome had delivered happy news many times in his twelve years as an obstetrician. The opportunity to do so regularly was why he had pursued the specialization in the first place, though the moments where there was no happy outcome grew harder to bear by the year. The look of awe on Sherlock Holmes' face was a memory he would carry with him for a while, to remind him why he loved this job.

The machine's integrated printer hummed quietly as it ejected small prints of the best of the images. He closed out of Molly's patient file, cutting off the sound of the fetal heart tones. He tore off the strip of thermal paper on which the images had printed and pressed it into his patient's hand. "All things considered, I think that's the best outcome we could have hoped for, Molly dear. I didn't see any sign of continuing bleeding, so I think it's safe to release you today, once we get those staples out, and you can follow up with me next week. I'll want to watch you carefully, probably have a few extra scans to make sure everything continues as it should. Sound alright to you?"

Molly nodded, wiping at her eyes before she moved to sit up. Carter extended his arm and she grabbed his elbow and opposite shoulder, moving with him to sit up carefully on the table. She hopped down gingerly and shuffled over to the wheelchair by the door. "That sounds okay. I suppose it is a good thing I hadn't thought to cancel my antenatal appointments yet. Back upstairs for a bit, then?" She sat down carefully, adjusting her gown about her knees then spreading the sheet over her lap and legs.

"I have a cesarean scheduled in twenty, but I'll pop by after to remove your staples, unless you want to let a nurse do it. I can just sign the discharge papers for you when we get back to the unit." He moved to take the handles of the wheelchair, but Sherlock stepped ahead of him before he could. Molly turned in surprise and looked up at the man, but his expression was inscrutable.

"Lead the way, Morecome." Molly knew that Sherlock knew the layout of Barts better than she did herself, and she'd worked here for eight years. He was being polite. _Would wonders never cease?_

They walked together towards the lifts, Sherlock pushing Molly in the wheelchair with ease. Hospital policy required that she move between wards in a wheelchair because of her recent surgery. She was less than impressed, as someone who had a habit of considering hospital policy malleable, but Carter had insisted and she had just wanted to get everything over with so she could put the nightmare behind her.

In the last five days, it had not once occurred to her that she might still be pregnant. She had lain awake at night, listening to the babies in the other parts of the ward, and had felt her heart hardening and her resolve to move on settle more deeply into her plans. But here she was, being helped back into her bed now, by _Sherlock_ , as Morecome strode off to complete her paperwork. The detective dropped himself into the vinyl-covered horrendously turquoise chair beside her bed and appeared to be avoiding looking directly at her.

Molly sat up on the edge of the bed and looked down at the strip of images in her hand. Three prints, each of a slightly different image, but all showed the unmistakeable outline of her child. She folded the last image back and creased above it with her thumbnail, then folded it back the other way and creased it again. She tore the picture from the strip and held it out to Sherlock.

He reached out and took the photo from her, meeting her eyes for a moment with a nod of thanks. Sherlock settled and sat perfectly still in the chair, gazing silently down at this first image of his child.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Figure 1 is a real app. It is free and is basically Instagram for doctors and it is an amazing learning resource for health professionals and future health professionals (like me.)


	8. Chapter 8

Sherlock had managed, barely, to keep his brother's nose out of his affairs. His work on the ongoing Moriarty case had necessitated regular contact with the elder Holmes, but Mycroft had restricted his irritating prying to relatively few aspects of the younger man's life. He knew that his association with Molly Hooper had passed under the radar of the British Government. Besides John, only Mary knew that Sherlock had used her flat as a bolt hole since his return from the dead. He had gone to considerable lengths to keep it that way, and Molly's ability to keep a secret had come in handy.

That she had been able to keep him from knowing about the pregnancy for weeks after she had discovered it surprised him. The woman was typically an open book as far as he was concerned; she wore her emotions on her face, and her affection for him kept her from wanting to conceal anything. Had they not had a flaming row immediately after her condition had come to light, he might have had to re-evaluate his opinion of his pathologist. He had decided to put thought of that off until he'd had a chance to speak with her properly.

Sherlock had seen an exhausted Molly safely home in a cab, helping her navigate the stairs up to her third floor flat. It was easier for her to move without the staples, but she was still a bit unsteady over longer distances. She had thanked him for his uncharacteristic helpfulness with a smile and entered her flat without letting him in. Before he left, he heard her speaking with Mrs. Patel - the neighbour she had called to come feed her cat while she was in hospital.

Belstaff doffed, he entered his flat, intentionally ignoring his brother who was seated primly in John's chair, filing his nails absently. He'd known Mycroft was there as soon as he'd exited the cab. _Still can't help straightening that doorknocker._

"Good evening, Sherlock. How was your day?" His voice was even, but held a warning tone that Sherlock picked up on immediately.

He grabbed a tumbler from the cupboard and the milk from the fridge, pouring himself a glass without looking into the sitting room. "What do you want, Mycroft?"

"Just checking in, brother dear. How is the case going?"

Sherlock was at his chair in five long strides and dropped into his leather chair like greeting an old friend. "The supply lines in Smithfield are being supported by the same entity that paid those hackers. Hardly difficult to track the movement of the money. Obvious, really. Funnelled through drugs, as usual. It will be in my report, since you insist on me completing those ridiculous things."

Mycroft's considerable influence had permitted Sherlock's return to England at New Year, but his continued freedom was conditional on working officially - insofar as anyone did - as a temporary MI-6 operative, until he saw this case through to its conclusion. It allowed him access to resources he hadn't had before, but came with some cumbersome demands about legalities and _ethics._ Rubbish, that.

"I've been insisting on reports for six weeks, Sherlock, and you have yet to provide me any _written_ updates."

"I sent you an email last week."

"Yes, and all you wrote was 'piss off.' Hardly something I can pass up the chain, brother dear."

Sherlock smirked, "Oh but think how satisfying that would be to pass around the Home Office. I'll have John write something up for you tomorrow." He waved his hand dismissively and took a deep swig of his milk.

Mycroft splayed his elegant fingers over the arm of the chair in which he sat, the only sign of irritation his carefully maintained front would permit. "I need a report _from you,_ not your little helpmate. You may have talked your way into having him appointed your PA officially, but Smallwood wants to hear from you and until she does, she has become very aggravating. You are only free to move about because some very powerful people have it in their minds that you can fix this problem. Don't antagonize them, Sherlock."

Having had the Home Office send John documentation naming him as a personal assistant had been the highlight of Sherlock's return. John had stewed for a week over the new position title, though he hadn't objected to the healthy stipend that came along with it. GP locum posts were not as lucrative as his work with Sherlock had been, and John had limited himself to part time hours at the surgery to focus more on the current case.

"Fine. I'll write something up. If those morons don't understand parts of it, you may inform them that I am not answering any of their questions. It's not my fault Her Majesty's Government can't hire anyone capable of independent thought." He felt his mobile buzz in his pocket. Just in time. A cab pulled up outside and Sherlock heard the car doors open and close. Mycroft glanced over in the direction of the windows, but turned his attention back to his younger brother.

"Ah but Sherlock, _you_ are now in the employ of the British Government."

"Not by choice." He rose and walked to the door, greeting the people who were climbing the stairs. "Good evening, Mummy. Father."

Mycroft stood quickly. It wasn't often Sherlock managed to surprise him, but Mycroft had spent the entire day in tedious meetings. He'd not reviewed the reports for the day detailing the movements of people on his personal surveillance docket.

"Hello, dear. What's this about then?" She hung up her long, dark coat and gave her boys each a hug. Miriam Holmes had always been an affectionate, supportive mother. That her boys had ended up so detached was a matter of considerable consternation for her, but she had been very pleased in recent years at Sherlock's softening. Sherlock knew his mother adored John Watson and had adopted him as her own, in her mind. He'd had to give her Mary's number to stop his mother contacting him about the woman's pregnancy.

"Would you be needing some tea?" Mrs. Hudson called up the stairs.

Mycroft replied in the affirmative, and sat back down in John's well-loved but ugly chair, which had been Mycroft's own in his uni days, a fact Sherlock had never revealed to his friend. He was waiting for the perfect moment to spring that one on his best friend-cum-PA.

"Sit down, sit down. How was the play?" Sherlock _never_ made small talk, even with his adoring parents. It was beneath him. Mycroft considered it beneath him as well. Respectful silence was preferred to artificial noise.

The elderly couple launched into a rambling account of the play they had come into London to see. His father repeated the final two words of each of his mother's accounts, and nodded randomly in agreement at various points. Sherlock didn't hear a word of it. Neither did Mycroft. The two brothers were vastly different in many important ways, but in that one moment, they were in complete agreement. _Dull._

Before long, Mrs. Hudson returned with tea, and she greeted Sherlock's parents fondly. They had met some time ago, and Miriam Holmes had made semi-regular social visits to Baker Street during her shopping days in London to visit Martha Hudson. The friendship that bloomed between the erstwhile mathematician and the former exotic dancer was something of a marvel to Sherlock. Knowing what he did of the two women, it still made no sense. Mary had been right when she said he didn't know the first thing about women. He was only just now discovering the true depths of his ignorance.

"Mrs. Hudson, please, sit." He gestured to his chair, garnering curious looks from all in attendance. Courtesy, thy name is not _Holmes._

"I have summoned you all here to prevent the aggravating stepwise dissemination of information about my life that seems to be the norm. If it isn't the British Security Services reporting my every movement to Mycroft, it's Mrs Hudson calling you, Mummy. In what I believe may be a first, I have successfully kept all four of you in the dark about something very important and I am ensuring you all receive accurate information from me because this is, I am told, a _happy_ occasion." He hadn't looked at anyone in particular as he spoke, but Mycroft was looking at him with some degree of undisguised horror. Mrs Hudson, as usual, looked completely lost. His father was unruffled as ever, and his mother seemed to be vacillating between hopefulness and terror.

"On or about August twenty-fourth, I will be abandoning my post as the youngest Holmes."

There was silence for a moment as the pin dropped. Then,

"You _must_ be joking." "WHAT?!" "Oh dear, Sherlock..." "Oh no…"

It was so rare that Sherlock saw his brother lose his composure. He managed to remove his mobile from his pocket and snap a photo before Mycroft managed to control his features. He grinned at him cheekily.

Sherlock removed the scan printout from his breast pocket, and handed it to his mother, the first to reach him after rising from the sofa. Mrs. Hudson was at her side in a moment, her movement impeded by her uncooperative hip. Mycroft stood back, but was close enough to see the small image over his mother's shoulder.

" _Mary Margaret Hooper,"_ Mycroft hissed, reading the patient data at the top of the image. "The pathologist from Barts?"

Miriam Homes turned wide eyes on Sherlock, but before she could speak, Mrs. Hudson waved a hand in front of her mouth, her eyes wide and tearing up. "Oh, Sherlock. You and Molly? I had no idea. Oh, someone pass me a tissue before I make a mess of my face." Mycroft wordlessly handed the older woman a fine linen handkerchief from his inner breast pocket.

"This is the first I've heard of it," Miriam said archly.

"I don't make a habit of publicising my personal life."

"No, you leave it to your spurned ex-girlfriends to approach the national media," Mycroft said snidely, looking down the impressive length of his nose at his brother.

Thomas, the quiet and retiring man who so frequently let his wife speak for him rose to his full height. "It's not publicising something to inform your parents. I'm sure you're aware this comes as quite a surprise to us."

Sherlock sighed and resisted the very strong temptation to roll his eyes at the lot of them. "I am informing you now. I was only made aware a week ago and until yesterday we believed that the pregnancy had ended rather catastrophically. The existence of the surviving twin was not known until this morning, but it appears healthy." He spoke of the demise of one of the twins quietly, hating that his voice was edged with sadness. He mentally clamped down on that bit of sentiment. It could not be allowed, particularly in the presence of his brother.

"Oh, Sherlock," Mrs. Hudson whispered quietly. "I'm so sorry."

Miriam's lips were pursed as she tended to do when deep in thought. "I don't mean to be indelicate, Sherlock, but are you positive that you're the father? I mean, you aren't together, or haven't been long. This must have happened right after you were released from hospital. Right after that Jeanine woman."

Having anticipated this question, he produced a folded page from one of his myriad hidden pockets. "A pathology report was completed on the deceased twin. I had a paternity test run this afternoon. This document confirms what I have told you. I'm sure you'll want to give that to the family solicitor."

"Yes, thank you." His mother took the paper, scanned it quickly, and re-folded it to place in her handbag. Her expression softened and she suddenly drew her youngest son into a warm embrace, speaking over his shoulder. "This is all very sudden, Sherlock, but I hope it brings you happiness. I thought the only chance I'd ever have to be a grandmother was doting on John and Mary's daughter." As she stood back, she wiped away the start of tears from her eyes.

"Congratulations, son," Thomas said emphatically. He clapped Sherlock's hand in a firm, fatherly shake, his eyes suffused with a pride the likes of which Sherlock had not seen since the day he had graduated from Cambridge.

"Forgive us running out on you, Sherlock, but we must get to the station so we can get the train home tonight. Could you ring us a cab? They always seem to show up faster for you." He did as bidden, and saw his parents out the door of his flat. Mrs. Hudson had busied herself with cleaning up the teapot that no one had bothered to touch. Mycroft was sitting back down, hands steeped at his chin. He was uncharacteristically quiet, a pensive look on his aristocratic face.

"Well, dear, I'm for bed. Do bring Molly 'round - she's such a sweet girl. I'm so happy for you both." She clapped her hands to Sherlock's shoulders, smiling brightly up at him, and planted a motherly kiss on his cheek. "Goodnight, boys." She left the flat, carrying her now-clean tea service.

Sherlock returned to his leather chair, sitting opposite his brother, and followed his gaze to the scan image on the coffee table.

"This is going to complicate things, you know," Mycroft spoke quietly, his tone devoid of the venom Sherlock had expected. He seemed tired instead of angry, and Sherlock couldn't work up the will to bait him.

"I am aware of that. This was, obviously, unexpected. But I can't abandon her. Them."

The low fire in the grate reflected in Mycroft's eyes as he met Sherlock's gaze steadily. His features were etched with a deep sadness, the rawness of which Sherlock had never before seen his brother display. "You have to. As soon as this case is over, you know what's coming."

Sherlock picked up the image and tucked it safely back in his inner pocket. He looked into the coals of the dying flames, unconsciously mirroring Mycroft's expression "The East wind."


	9. Chapter 9

Molly stretched languidly in her gigantic bed, having enjoyed the best sleep of the last week. The gentle pull of her incision reminded her of the days in hospital, but she allowed a smile to creep lazily onto her face, though she kept her eyes closed against the sun streaming in through her large windows. The bed was one of the few conspicuous luxuries Molly allowed herself. She'd purchased the frightfully expensive monstrosity a couple of years prior. It took up most of the space in her small bedroom, but it was worth it. She loved sinking into the welcoming softness, surrounded by her ludicrously high thread count Egyptian cotton sheets.

While her pathologist's salary was comfortable enough that Molly had been able to purchase her own small flat in central London - though only because her estate agent had found the property being sold at an absurdly low price due to a gruesome murder/suicide in the lounge, a fact that had not bothered the pathologist in the least but which made it difficult to move a property, even in Smithfield - it was an indulgence that did require some frugality in other areas of her life. The well-appointed building housed several professional couples and Fetter Lane was only a half mile from Molly's work, so she considered the expense worth it. With what she'd paid for this flat, it aggravated her to no end that the only lift in the building had been out for the last month, however.

Deciding against whiling away the day in her bed, Molly pulled her dressing gown off the footboard of the gigantic sleigh bed and rose carefully, steadying herself on the bedside table. After tying the sash very loosely about her waist - she was still quite sore - Molly picked up the iPad from her table and opened the browser to peruse the news as she walked to her small kitchen to start up the coffee.

"Good morning, Dr. Hooper." Molly stopped dead, head whipping up at the polished accent of the immaculate woman who was sitting at her small dining table. Her greying blonde hair was cut in a bob that seemed a bit young for the middle-aged woman, though her well-tailored and certainly designer skirt suit and clearly very expensive shoes complemented the look. Molly recognized the woman from the news article that was open on the iPad in her hand.

_What was the bloody Home Secretary doing at her table?_

"Um, good morning, Ma'am," she said in a small voice, feeling woefully inadequate standing before this pristine professional woman in her well-loved dressing gown and almost assuredly mussed hair.

"Theresa, please. I'm sorry to drop in on you like this, but I received a rather fascinating email last evening that has caused me some concern. Please, sit. Tea?"

Molly sat down carefully across from her, allowing herself a moment to wonder at the absurdity of the _bloody Home Secretary herself_ pouring her a cup of tea at her own table. She nodded and accepted the cup from the older woman.

"This has something to do with Sherlock, I suppose," Molly found her voice and was quite proud of herself for delivering the statement as steadily as she did. It had been a long time since she had felt as wrong-footed as she did in this woman's presence.

"Naturally. Mycroft sent me a message last night about the developments," she flicked her eyes down in the direction of Molly's abdomen, "in his younger brother's life that might compromise some work he is doing for us." She paused to sip her tea and continued once she'd replaced the cup on its saucer. "I'm sure you've learned something of what Sherlock has been doing the last few weeks."

Molly nodded. "I know he's consulting for something to do with the government, but I know better than to ask. I'm sure he'd have to kill me if he told me," she joked weakly.

The politician smiled genuinely. "Consulting, you might call it that. Mycroft asked me to see you, since Hammond's out of the country. Sherlock isn't reporting to my Office, so I am here in an unofficial capacity."

"And why, exactly, are you here ma… Theresa?" Molly's hand trembled slightly. She'd known that Sherlock had been in some trouble that had taken some high level manoeuvring to sort out, but she was ignorant of the details. All she had gleaned from he and John was that they were now working under the authority of the government. The head of Pathology had finally stopped poking at her about Sherlock's comings and goings in the lab as he now had all of the appropriate clearances and permissions. His newly official access to the hospital was followed by an influx of funding, to cover the rather expensive laboratory materials he used. Her boss had been quite pleased at this development.

The fact that the players in Sherlock's work went to the very highest levels of government was just a bit unnerving, though on considering the enigma that was Mycroft - with whom she had worked closely for a short while when faking Sherlock's death - she felt it shouldn't surprise her as much as it did.

Theresa's lips tightened a bit in a humourless smile. "It's not usually the done thing for our… consultants to have the sorts of attachments that Sherlock now has. God knows we shouldn't be surprised that _he_ isn't doing things the way he should." Molly laughed softly at that and the other woman's expression gentled. "It does present a bit of a problem because the danger he faces now extends to you. One thing for someone like Sherlock to have some threats against him - that's hardly news - but you are a private citizen. We can't be seen allowing you to be dragged into the line of fire, as it were."

The bald talk of the cloud of danger that Sherlock lived under made Molly's heart speed up. She had always known he lived a life on the edge, but thetrashy spy-who-loved-me romance novels on her shelf, which she would never publicly admit to reading under pain of death, rarely captured the feeling of cold fear that crept on someone upon discovering that someone of importance to them was involved in something acutely dangerous and far larger than them.

"You have been provided a security detail, Doctor Hooper. They shouldn't be any nuisance. In fact, you'll likely not see them often, but they won't be far away." She raised an elegantly manicured hand to still Molly's question. "Yes, they will be present at your work, and they are nearby now. Mycroft hand picked them himself. I'm telling you this as a courtesy - we don't often advise people of their protection status, but as you work alone so frequently, it would be difficult to conceal them for any prolonged period."

 _Prolonged period._ "How long will they be… How long am I going to be monitored?"

"Oh no, dear, we're not monitoring you. Well, I suppose I shouldn't quite say that," she smirked at Molly, referencing the open secret that the Home Office's counterterrorism operations monitored the communications of private British citizens, though they vehemently denied allegations of profiling. "No more than any other member of the public. We're only concerned for your safety, since we can't have you used as leverage, given what's at stake. It tends to get somewhat messy when the public gets tangled up and hurt in the course of these sorts of things."

She rose, then, and patted down her skirt. "They'll be here as long as they are necessary. I only ask that you not do anything to draw attention to your detail, if you do notice them. Now, I must be going. I'm here as a favour to Mycroft, but I'll be late for church if I'm not on my way soon."

"Thank you, Theresa," Molly said politely, taking the woman's extended hand and shaking it perfunctorily. She knew she should be asking all sorts of questions, but the spinning in her mind wouldn't allow any of them to coalesce long enough to be expressed.

As the Home Secretary donned her long, wool coat, not unlike Sherlock's, Molly noted, she favoured the younger woman with a bright smile. "Between you and me, and so long as you don't tell him, Mycroft did seem a bit pleased when I spoke with him." Her eyes danced merrily as she spoke with a playfully conspiratorial tone, and Molly could tell she must consider the icy man a friend. "I've known that man for twenty years and I don't think I have ever actually heard him express any sort of genuine emotion before now. It will be dreadfully fun to tease him about being an uncle." She grinned, the expression making her seem far younger.

"Good day, Doctor Hooper. Do take care of yourself. Mycroft has assured me of your discretion, so I hope it goes without saying that we will expect it of you as well." She let herself out, closing the door politely behind her.

Molly looked around, her tea forgotten, wondering if some faceless agent were peering through the window at her right now. She self-consciously pulled her dressing gown a bit more tightly about herself, crossing her arms over her chest.

Coffee. This was a time for coffee. She may have had to limit her caffeine intake because of the pregnancy, but Molly knew well enough that she could safely consume around 200 milligrams a day without any danger. Her coffee consumption typically rivalled Sherlock's, and she supposed it was only the fact that she hadn't reduced her coffee drinking until she'd decided to continue the pregnancy that had kept Sherlock from deducing her state earlier. That, and the fact that she'd not even had a hint of morning sickness or exhaustion so there hadn't been any symptoms to conceal from him.

Her mind travelled unbidden to last Saturday, when she had informed the detective of her impending motherhood.

_"That's not possible," he'd hissed at her._

_Molly had spun around on him, furious. "Of course it's possible! I'm sure I don't need to explain the biology to you!" She had crossed her arms over her chest and glanced out the narrow window on the laboratory door. There were better places to be having this discussion than the small laboratory at work, but she didn't feel she could wait any longer._

_"The oral contraceptive is over 99% effective when taken properly. More combined with… other precautions…" The slightest bit of colour rose in his high cheekbones. Sherlock had actually_ blushed _. Molly had seen him embarrassed once before and had thought it endearing, but right now she was too furious to care._

_She interrupted him before he could go on. "There are no guarantees. Some women don't metabolize the OCP as well as others, there's any number of reasons this could have happened. But they are secondary to the fact that it did."_

_"Any number of reasons," he quoted. "Like_ _**forgetting** _ _your pills in a desperate attempt to leap on the opportunity to fulfill some deep-seated and deeply misguided maternal impulse as you felt your biological clock ticking away without any prospective partners on the horizon after Mister Meat Dagger gave up on you?" He sneered down at her, his tone vicious. Molly hauled off and slapped him._

_"Don't you dare imply…" She breathed heavily. "Tom and I split because I_ didn't _want children and he did. This was an accident and I wasn't even planning on continuing it until last week because God knows you're the_ _ **last**_ _person who should be raising a child." He was rubbing at the spot where her small hand had contacted his cheek, but his brow furrowed when she spoke. She could see the comment stung more than the blow. Good._

_"Don't be stupid, Molly. This is a complication I can't afford. Have you put any thought into how this might affect my work or were you selfish enough to only think about yourself?" He had the foresight to step back a bit, but she didn't raise her hand to strike him again._

_She turned away from him, barely containing a biting remark about the irony of_ this man _calling her selfish. "Just get out. I can't stop you from coming back, but right now I want you out of this hospital and out of my life. I don't want anything from you, Sherlock Holmes. I have no intention of getting in the way of your precious work. Just for once, have the decency to do as you're asked and_ _ **get the**_ _ **hell out of my lab.**_ _" She had shouted the last, the sound ringing briefly in the small room. She didn't turn when she heard the door close with a soft thump._

_Hands shaking, Molly Hooper sat down heavily on one of the lab stools and covered her face with her hands, letting the sobs she had been fighting since all this nonsense began consume her._

Standing now at the tall window in her sitting room, freshly brewed coffee in hand, Molly looked over at the small framed image propped up on her desk. Funny how a week could change things. She and Sherlock had reached some sort of understanding, but for the life of her, she had no idea what was going through his head.

At least, with the rest of her life changing around her faster than she had ever thought possible, that one fact hadn't changed. Sherlock Holmes was still a complete mystery.


	10. Chapter 10

Sherlock Holmes did not get anxious. He was a seasoned consulting detective, a man who had spent over a decade solving crimes that perplexed the country's _best_ law enforcement organizations, disappointing as Britain's best and brightest usually were. He was not _anxious._ And he most assuredly was not pacing, outward appearances aside. He dropped into his chair, legs bouncing and hands scrabbling at the arms of the chair. This would not _do._

The kettle's switch clicked, signalling it was done. He stalked back into the kitchen and finished preparing the tea. He heard Mrs. Hudson open the front door in response to a soft knock, and her pleased-sounding greeting confirmed that his guest was on time.

Moments later, Molly Hooper stood awkwardly in the open door frame. "Mrs. Hudson let me in…" she studiously avoided meeting his gaze and he realized he should probably say something. John was much better at breaking the ice.

"Molly, come in. Tea?"

"Please."

She toed off her winter boots and removed her coat. As she reached up to hang her coat to hang it on a hook by the door, Sherlock noticed the small but more pronounced swell of her abdomen beneath her thin jumper. A week ago, when Webber had scanned her, she hadn't appeared as pregnant as she did now. Molly was a petite woman, not in ideal physical condition. It shouldn't surprise him that she was showing a bit even at this early stage, but the visible evidence of what she'd come to discuss provoked in him an emotion that he shoved very quickly and without remorse into the pit beneath his mind palace.

Sherlock deposited the tea tray on the small coffee table and took his seat, motioning for Molly to sit down across from him. He poured the two cups of tea in silence, handing Molly hers before adding sugar to his own. He sipped the comforting brew and realized that the woman across from him was anxious too. Sherlock loathed awkward social situations like this. There was a reason he had avoided friendships for most of his life.

"So." He said at last into the silence. It was as good a place to start as any. "How are you feeling?"

"Fine, I'm fine. Finally able to sleep now I'm back in my own bed. Those hospital beds are horrid. I'm glad my patients can't complain or I'd never hear the end of it." The corner of her mouth lifted in a half smile. Mortuary humour tended to cause some awkwardness around others, but with Sherlock was effective at putting them both somewhat at ease.

"Molly," he began, at the same moment she spoke his own name. They looked at each other, and he motioned for her to continue.

"I met the Home Secretary this morning. Imagine my surprise to be standing in my dressing gown in front of one of the most powerful women in the country."

"What did Theresa want?" Molly's eyes bugged out a bit. She would never get used to how dismissively he spoke of the powerful people that surrounded him.

Molly shifted in the chair and took a sip of her tea. "She wanted to tell me about my new friends." She gestured her head towards the stairs. "The black-suited, ear piece sort."

Sherlock smirked. "You need to stop reading those novels, Molly. They're probably plainclothes. They don't like to stand out."

"You would know. Apparently you're playing James Bond these days."

"Hardly." With a mischievous look, he added, "They don't trust me with firearms anymore."

Molly blinked, clearly unsure whether he was joking. He would refrain from telling her that he wasn't. One of the many _conditions_ to which he'd been forced to submit.

She seemed to consider and then reject the idea but she could hear some discomfort under the levity with which he'd coloured his words. Changing tack, she asked "So you've told your brother, then? And Mrs. Hudson obviously knows."

Sherlock nodded. "Mycroft would have found out as soon as he read his reports. I only had a few hours to make sure they heard it from me before he started making a fuss. My parents were already in London for the evening. The timing was convenient. And for all his power, my brother is a complete drama queen and I wasn't going to let him spoil the surprise."

"That's rich, coming from you." Molly's amused expression

He smiled genuinely. "I never could resist a touch of drama either."

Molly returned the smile. "How did your parents take it?"

"Better than expected. Mum wants to meet you. She has wanted grandchildren for years but knew better than to expect any."

"Especially from Mycroft," Molly drawled. Sherlock snorted.

"She was starting to take in strays. Mary is going to tell her to piss off, soon." Neither of John's parents were still alive, and he didn't know what country Mary's were in, let alone if they were alive, so the impending Watson addition was being claimed by Sherlock's parents.

Molly sobered and took a deep breath, the tone between the two of them shifting from something like the once companionable dialogue they had shared for several years back to the awkwardness that had once been the norm for the two.

During Sherlock's _death_ , Molly had been one of his few regular contacts, each time he'd been called back to London, as she had necessarily been aware of the lie. Sherlock hadn't known for sure that his elaborate plan would work, and he had faced a very real risk of death. He had heard his friend's anguished cries as he fell, and John's weakly muttered _he's my friend…_ as he observed Sherlock's motionless form on the paving slabs. He had been surprised by how his friend's audible pain struck him at that moment, and he started to understand the value of loyalty.

When the door had closed to the morgue, concealing him from view so that he could finally break character (playing dead, he had learned, was not quite as easy as he'd thought it would be,) before he could rise, Molly had grabbed him in a tight embrace, stronger than her slight frame seemed to allow. For the first time in his adult life - perhaps due to the charged nature of the moment - Sherlock hadn't quailed at the contact. He had returned the hug, and held onto the small woman for several minutes as the reality of what it meant to leave his life behind sank in. Within hours, he was on a plane to Asia.

For the two years of his death, he contacted Molly when able. She would tell him of interesting cases, and update him on his other friends. She had proven herself worthy of his trust, and the constancy of her friendship kept him from losing himself completely in the mission.

By the time he had returned for good, he and Molly had developed a friendship that rivalled his and John's, though of a different nature. It hadn't been at all awkward when their closeness lead them further soon after his discharge from hospital in mid-November. He had escaped to her flat as often as he could excuse himself from John's presence without raising suspicion. Then Christmas had crept upon them and with it the climax of the Magnussen case. He'd been held in some secret gaol, the location of which he was still unaware, until New Year, when he was to be exiled.

Since his return, he had seen Molly only in the lab. Until this last week.

"I know this isn't what either of us wanted, but it's what we've got," Molly said quietly, her voice quivering slightly. "I'm not asking anything from you, Sherlock. I don't have any expectations. But I would like to involve you in this" she motioned towards her abdomen. "If… if that's okay," she finished lamely, daring to look up at the man who seemed far away in thought.

He abruptly turned his head and met her gaze steadily. "If you're still in, I'm still in."

Molly's eyes widened. "Oh my _God,_ Sherlock." She couldn't control herself let out a whoop of laughter, dissolving in a fit of giggles. Sherlock joined her, the deep baritone of his rich laugh laying like a balm over her over the wounds of last weekend.

Gasping for breath, eyes sparkling with tears of mirth that she wiped away with a thumb. "I can't believe you remembered that." The detective had quoted the note from one of Molly's favourite films, one that seemed oddly appropriate in the situation. On one of his first visits back to London, he had shown up at her flat while she was watching _Juno_ and he had sat down with her, arguing with the film as he often did with crap telly.

He grinned at her, the corners of his eyes crinkling as he took in the red-cheeked pathologist across from him.

This was the scene that met John and Mary as they entered the flat. The Watsons each looked at the two other occupants of the room and then exchanged a confused look between them. They'd heard Sherlock's rumbling laughter accompanied by distinctly female guffaws as they had entered the building.

"We've missed something, haven't we?" John asked, releasing Mary's hand so he could take her coat.

Mary's keen eye observed Sherlock and Molly and while she could see that they had gotten over Sherlock's insensitivity, but she could not for the life of her figure out why these two were not only laughing, but looking positively _happy_ in the circumstances.

"Out with it, you two," Mary said. She shooed Sherlock out of his chair and dropped down heavily.

"There _is_ a sofa, Mary," he grumble as he rose.

She stretched her legs out ahead of her. "Which is perfectly suitable for you, but I can't get up off of it."

" _What_ is going on?" John had taken Sherlock's forgotten cup of tea and sat perched on the arm of the sofa himself. He grimaced as he tasted the sugar, but kept the cup anyway.

Sherlock and Molly exchanged a look. She mimed an exaggerated shrug and nodded slightly at him, indicating he should speak. She sipped her tea calmly and waited. _This should be good._

"Well?" John uttered expectantly.

Sherlock took the now slightly crinkled image from his pocket and handed it to John. The army doctor's eyes darted over it and went wide. "No…"

Sherlock smiled tightly. "Yes. Confirmed on Friday." John looked from the image to his best friend.

"What's this now?" Mary called over, straining to try to see what it was John was holding. He was stunned into silence, his mouth opening and closing as he tried to find something to say. "John, what is it?"

Sherlock spoke. "It's an image from an ultrasound scan."

"My scan," Molly piped up. "Mary, do you know what a heterotopic pregnancy is?"

The blonde woman dropped the teacup she had just lifted off the tray. "Oh my God." Molly grinned at her. "Oh my God!" she was more shrill with that one and grabbed the arms of the chair to pull herself up. "Oh my God!" Mary sobbed. She pulled Molly into a tight hug, repeating herself over and over, tears flowing freely down her face. Molly laughed lightly, but was soon fighting tears from her own eyes, overwhelmed by the force of Mary's happiness.

John looked from the two women back to his best friend. He recognized the look on Sherlock's face; it was the same one he himself had worn at his wedding reception six months before when this man had told Mary and he of his unexpected deduction. Sherlock was watching Mary and Molly with a look of unexpected, unfiltered joy.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The dates I am keeping to are canon. The events of The Empty Hearse took place up to November 5, 2013, which places John and Mary's wedding in early August, 2014, per John's blog, and their baby due in April 2015. Sherlock shot Magnussen on Christmas 2014. This story is taking place slightly in the future, actually, as Chapter 10's date was February 22, 2015.

John and Sherlock had spent the day in the lab. Molly had been back at work a week now following her recovery from surgery, and popped in occasionally with coffee for the two men, though she was never able to stay long with the amount of paperwork she still had to make up after two weeks away. John's phone was face up on the counter beside the well plate into which he was pipetting samples of something only Sherlock understood - he'd taken John's title of _personal assistant_ far too seriously - because of Mary's complaint of very uncomfortable Braxton hicks the night before.

His wife, much to her consternation, was considered as being of advanced maternal age. She had not been particularly thrilled when he helpfully informed her that the term was an improvement on the former standard of _geriatric pregnancy_. While being deployed in a war zone hadn't left him many opportunities for the application of his limited obstetric training, he knew that Mary was at increased risk of premature labour. Every time his phone buzzed with a message, he leapt for it.

"Greg's on his way here," John said aloud when he saw the text alert pop up. He unlocked the screen and read more. "Says he'll drop off that file you asked for."

"Hmm," was Sherlock's distracted reply. Whatever he could see in the eyepiece held his focus far more than anything John had to say.

It wasn't long before the salt-and-pepper haired DI stepped into the lab. He dropped a thin manila folder on the counter beside Sherlock's microscope.

"Good afternoon, Gregory," Sherlock said without looking up.

"How many times do…" he stopped and quirked a smile. "Very funny."

John greeted Greg warmly, though he could see that Lestrade was under some stress. His wife had just moved out, again, and it was clearly evident in the rumpled clothes the normally well-dressed man wore. "How's things?"

"Been better," he sighed heavily, sipping his fragrant coffee from the paper cup he'd brought in with him. "Kids don't seem overly bothered, though. Guess they were expecting it. Speaking of - when's yours getting here? Should be soon, yeah?"

"A few more weeks to go, but Mary's been put off work already." The door opened as Molly pushed it open with her back, entering carrying two cups of steaming coffee.

"Oh, hello Greg," she smiled up at him. The DI hadn't seen Molly since she'd been back from her sick leave. His eyebrows shot up in surprise. Molly was nearly sixteen weeks pregnant now, and her small frame made it quite apparent.

"Neither of you thought to mention this?" he asked John and Sherlock, a bit incredulous. He strode forward and gave the small woman a fatherly hug around her shoulders. "This is why you were off, then?"

She set one cup of coffee beside Sherlock, still absorbed in whatever he was manipulating with a micropipette on the slide, and handed the other cup to John. "Yes, bit of a complication but everything's okay now."

"When're you due?"

"August twenty-fourth," Sherlock said succinctly, looking up. He gave his thanks to Molly for the coffee, shooting her a small smile that did not escape the notice of the Detective Inspector. Greg looked over to John, eyebrows almost to his hairline. Shoulders shaking with suppressed laughter, John nodded.

"You have _got_ to be kidding me," he groaned.

Sherlock straightened on the stool, expression clouding a bit. "Problem, Lestrade?" Molly coughed delicately, covering her grin with her hand.

"I'm just off for some lunch," Molly said quietly. "Did you or John want anything?"

"I don't think we'll be here much longer," Sherlock responded. "John will be called home soon, and I have a meeting I can't avoid much longer."

Greg mouthed the word "meeting?" For years, he had attempted to get Sherlock to take part in some of the more official aspects of his consulting work. Whoever was bossing him around now clearly had skills that Greg did not possess. If he found out the man actually kept records of anything, he might die of shock.

Molly squeezed Sherlock's arm fondly and left with a small wave to the other men. Sherlock turned to Lestrade, his expression neutral. "What?"

"You and Molly. A baby. How did _that_ happen?"

"Seeing as you have successfully reproduced twice, I'm sure that you don't need me to answer that question." Lestrade cleared his throat

John snorted. "I _know_. Just don't think about it too much and go with it."

"Yeah. Right. Anyway, I'm here to see a man about a body. No need to bring that back, Sherlock. It's just a printout of the digital copies."

He walked to the door, but turned before exiting. "You know this is really weird, yeah?" Sherlock shot him a pointed look, but nodded in agreement. "Okay, then." He left, just as John's phone rang.

"Yes?" A pause. "Okay, calm down. I'm at Barts. Do you want to get a cab here or should I come get you? Okay. Okay, I'll be right there." John sighed as he hit the end button. "You should have gone into medicine instead of chemistry," he said to his friend, not for the first time making the point that Sherlock's deductive skills had other practical uses.

"Mmm, no thanks. I prefer dead people." John grabbed his coat from the wall, shaking his head.

"Well, Mary's in a state. I'm sure it's nothing, but she'll want me home for the rest of the day."

Sherlock waved dismissively. "You assistance is appreciated but not required. I can finish that." It was the closest thing the man had to gratitude for John's work. As the shorter man left, Sherlock stepped over to the well plate. With quick, efficient movements, he prepared the samples he and John had purchased, under a variety of pseudonyms, from various chemical distributors.

His _handlers_ had required that he prove, with actual laboratory analysis, what he had already deduced two weeks ago. The cumbersome requirements placed on him had been a source of immense frustration that he tolerated only due to the looming threat, something he had made a point of concealing from those around him.

Sherlock had not been welcomed back to the country with open arms, as Mycroft had made abundantly clear. He was on a short leash and those above him made no secret of it, pulling him to heel when it suited them. He had spent the first few weeks of his new reporting relationship keeping to his old habits out of spite.

But when the news about Molly reached Smallwood and her lot last month, they hadn't hesitated to use it as their own leverage. The unspoken threat hung around him that he would be pulled away for parts unknown if he stepped a toe out of line. Mycroft had not been amused by the parallel Sherlock drew between Smallwood and Magnussen, considering the outcome of the latter.

They owned him and, worst of all, they knew it. His brother had been right. _Caring is not an advantage._ He had opened his life to other people, and it was being used against him in a perverse power play in which he was a bit player.

All he could do was keep his eyes open for an opportunity to escape the chains they'd tied him in, preferably without resulting in his death or exile. Again.

Molly entered the lab again, carrying a brown takeaway bag that quickly filled the room with the heady fragrance of butter chicken and a tray with two wax paper cups pressed into it. Sherlock rarely cared to eat while working, but Molly had made a habit of bringing him food anyway. He ate if she ate, though rarely as much. Each time he'd stayed with her, her stash of frozen Indian meals started shrinking, so she knew just what to get him.

"Everything okay?" He had that look she'd seen before. That sadness that he tried to hide, though he never quite could completely manage it.

He slid an arm around her waist, pulling her closer in a sideways embrace. The ease with which such simple affection came to him was still new to them both. "It will be." He opened one of the bags. "Did you get the mango lassi?" She held up the tray.

She handed him one of the Styrofoam containers and sat down on a stool with her own and one of the cheap plastic forks they'd included. Health and Safety nagged her endlessly about eating in the lab, but she reasoned that it was better than eating in the morgue. "I stopped by imaging on my way back. They've scheduled my anatomy scan for the 29th. Did you want to come?" She asked the last more casually than she actually felt about it.

Sherlock could tell this was one of those _things_ John had warned him about. At length. Repeatedly. One of those insignificant milestones to which pregnant women attached absurd levels of importance. John had told him in no uncertain terms that he was to pretend to care about it as much as she did, or there would be _consequences._ He had not elaborated, but as Sherlock was still very ill suited to coping with the tears of his increasingly emotionally labile pathologist, he thought it best to take his more experienced friend's advice.

"Of course. What time is it?" He took a mouthful of the chicken and formed a moue of distaste. It seemed Peter was back from his holidays. He always added slightly too much ginger.

"Nine." She stirred the butter chicken idly and took a sip of her lassi. Sherlock entered the appointment on the calendar in his mobile, more to signal to her that he would be there than in actual need of the reminder. "My sister wants to come too." She looked at him hopefully.

Sherlock froze. Molly didn't have much family left. Her grandparents and parents had died young. Her father had died while she and her sister were both at uni and the two sisters had drifted apart. They lacked the open loathing Sherlock had for his brother, but Molly and Andrea had almost nothing in common. Sherlock hadn't met her, but knew he would have to eventually. At least this afforded him the opportunity to meet her on neutral ground, where the women would be occupied with discussing the pregnancy and the focus would not be on him.

"That will be acceptable."

Molly beamed at him. Their interactions were still a bit stilted and awkward by times, but they'd made considerable progress. The relationship between the two remained undefined, but they were recovering some of the closeness they had shared.

"Thank you, Sherlock. I'll tell her to be good."

He nodded, mouth full of chicken.

Molly rushed through the last bit, "Also, she's a member of Anderson's fan club and I haven't told her that you're the baby's father yet." She grinned wickedly.

_Oh, hell._


	12. Chapter 12

Despite John's constant worry about his atypical sleeping habits, Sherlock did sleep regularly. He required less sleep than most to be fully aware, and could subsist for long periods using a structured napping method he had perfected in uni, but like anyone else, he enjoyed restorative sleep. It was why, in his disorganized flat full of second hand, almost derelict furniture, he had a fifteen hundred pound bed and a neat, well-decorated bedroom. Sherlock valued his sleep.

So it was with some annoyance that he was roused at three in the morning by the ringtone he had assigned specifically to John. The doctor never phoned him, preferring to text.

Molly reached over and plucked the Blackberry off of her bedside table and handed it to her bedmate, pulling the down duvet back over her. Sherlock had approved of Molly's choice of bed, so similar to his own, but far more suited to two people. He hit the button to connect the call. "It's time?"

"We're at Barts. Been here a few hours but it won't be much longer. She's hooked up to an epidural and things are speeding up now." John's voice was light and he spoke quickly.

Molly's thricebedamned cat chose that moment to jump on Sherlock's chest and meow. Even in his blissfully befuddled state, John heard it.

"Sherlock, are you at Molly's?" he asked with undisguised amusement. Before Sherlock could respond, he added "I don't care, bring her too. It's baby time!" He rung off.

"Mary's having the baby?" Molly asked, bleary-eyed but reaching to turn on the side lamp. He nodded, throwing off the cover to rise. "Should I call your parents?"

He reached over to the door of the wardrobe where he had hung his clothes the night before and pulled on his plum shirt. "Leave it. They won't be able to get here until morning anyway."

Molly had risen uncomfortably and walked out of the bedroom. He heard the door to her washroom close. Sherlock was fully dressed by the time she returned. "Good timing on Mary's part. We need to be at Barts in a few hours anyway. She is delivering at Barts?"

Sherlock nodded. "Tea before we leave?"

"Coffee, I think. I have to be at work after my scan and I'd rather not be dropping off at my desk again."

He called back toward the bedroom as he found his way to the kitchen unerringly in the dark, "You do that even when you aren't pregnant."

Thirty minutes and a very short cab ride later, Sherlock and Molly were at the second floor delivery ward waiting room. Molly had asked after Mary at the desk and been directed to wait.

Another forty-five minutes passed, during which Molly had fallen asleep curled on the uncomfortable loveseat, before John came out, a wide grin on his face. "We have a healthy baby girl!" he said firmly.

Sherlock clapped his friend on the shoulder, smiling back at him. "How is Mary?"

Molly woke up at the commotion and blinked heavily a few times to bring her eyes into focus. John's excitement was obvious enough that Sherlock didn't feel the need to fill her in.

"Fine. Fantastic. She did absolutely incredible. Was pretty quick once she had the epi. Six pounds, nine ounces, good size for thirty seven weeks, and perfect. She's absolutely perfect." His vocabulary did tend to limit itself when John was excited and the glazing over of his friend's eyes told Sherlock not to expect eloquence.

Molly came around and embraced John happily. "Congratulations, John. When can we go in?"

"They're just trying to get going with the breastfeeding now. I have absolutely no idea how long that's going to take, but Mary kicked me out until she's done." A well-dressed older woman rounded the corner at that moment and waved John over. "Which would be about now. Come on. Handrub first, please." He pointed to an alcohol gel dispenser on the wall.

They followed the jubilant new father around the corner to one of the welcoming delivery suites. The equipment was housed in oak cabinets, the lights in the room low. Molly had never been in these rooms before, and the contrast to the stark decoration of the maternity floor - where Mary would be moved shortly - was significant. This room had a home-like atmosphere that put her at ease.

Mary looked up from the small bundle in her arms and smiled tiredly at Molly and Sherlock. "Come on you two, come hold her."

Molly extended her arms greedily, accepting the infant from Mary. The tiny infant's scrunched face, framed by wisps of pale ringlets, was all that was visible in Molly's arms. The pathologist ran the back of a finger down that tiny, reddened cheek of the sleeping infant. "She is absolutely beautiful, Mary." Her voice was gentle, awed and she smiled widely. Glancing away from the infant to Sherlock, he saw that she had tears in her eyes. He knew what she was thinking without need of deduction.

John reached over, taking his daughter gently from Molly's arms. The woman hesitated a bit before releasing the tiny, warm bundle.

"Willa Josephine Elizabeth Watson, meet your Uncle Sherlock." The detective reached out automatically when John moved to place the neonate in his arms. The entirety of her small body fit along the length of his forearm and he steadied her with his other arm. He swayed her gently in his arms, finding that the rocking motion people always seemed to adopt when holding infants was nearly instinctive. He saw Mary take a photo with her mobile out of the corner of his eye and scowled in her direction.

"Willa?" He smirked. "Seriously?"

John shrugged. "You can blame Mary for that one, _William."_ Molly smiled broadly; she'd been teasing him about his very ordinary first name as well. 'William' would never have done him justice.

"I had to have my brother send me your birth certificate to find out what that bloody H stood for, John. You can hardly talk." The infant in his arms whimpered a bit and Sherlock patted her bottom lightly, but the baby was rooting. "She appears to require something I am ill-equipped to provide."

He handed the baby back to a clearly exhausted Mary Watson. "Well done, you," he said in a low voice to Mary. She smiled weakly up at him. He and Mary both had gone to extraordinary lengths to protect this family, and he had sworn he would do so for the rest of his life, so they could live moments like this in the peace they deserved.

Mary wiped her free hand over her face. "Thank you both for coming, but I am knackered. They'll be moving me upstairs soon and I want to kip once this small miss lets me. Love you both, but get out and don't come back for at least a few hours."

"Text me after your scan, yeah?" John said to Molly. She was surprised he could remember that it was later today.

"Of course. You try to get some rest too. Might be your last chance for a while. Ring me if you need anything." She gave John a small kiss on his cheek and stepped out.

Sherlock extended his hand and John took it, then pulled the taller man to him and gave him a fraternal, one-armed embrace.

"Congratulations, John," Sherlock said when his friend released him.

The grin widened further, "Thanks, Sherlock."

He left his friend and his wife and new daughter, exiting the delivery floor in search of Molly. The little coffee kiosk downstairs was closed this time of night, and Molly hated the coffee at the canteen. He made his way down the stairs, exiting on the basement floor. As expected, she was in the pathology department lounge, making coffee.

"I don't think I can stay up until nine," she said through a yawn.

Sherlock grabbed the new copy of the New England Journal of Medicine off the side table and dropped onto the long sofa. "I'll wake you in time, if you wanted to rest."

"Mm, sounds good." Molly was not a bold woman, usually, but the snail's pace with which her and Sherlock's relationship was a source of some frustration. Tonight had been the first time since December that he had slept at her flat, and they'd done nothing more than actually sleep. He'd had some questions for her about a case he couldn't explain fully, and she'd given him her professional opinion.

In the late evening, she had started dropping off, and had invited him to stay. She'd been surprised that he accepted, but she knew that he loved her bed. She was fairly certain his choice of her flat as a bolt hole had more to do with pocket coils and a down duvet than anything else.

She set the coffee maker to brew and sat down on the couch beside Sherlock, leaning down to rest her head in his lap. He stiffened a bit and looked startled, but she could see him pretending nonchalance even though his eyes stopped scanning the review article.

"It's just after four thirty. Wake me at seven?" she asked. Sherlock nodded, returning his attention to the article.

Just as Molly drifted quickly off to sleep, she felt the tall man's arm move to encircle her, his hand resting protectively on her now-prominent belly. She fell asleep with a smile on her face.

* * *

 

Molly was lying flat on the sofa when she awoke, Sherlock having moved sometime in the last couple of hours. He wasn't in the lounge, and she saw no sign of him. She pulled out her mobile and checked the time - 7:45. Why hadn't he woken her?

It was just over an hour until her appointment. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and went to pour herself a cup of coffee, glad to find that it was still hot. Sherlock tended to come and go on his own schedule, so she wasn't concerned by his absence.

She read through her blog roll on her mobile as she sipped the coffee. John had posted not long after she and Sherlock had left. The title of the post was replete with exclamation points, and she laughed when she saw that it was the candid photo Mary had snapped of Sherlock holding Willa that John had posted. The press would absolutely eat that up.

By some miracle, perhaps one by the name of Mycroft, the media had largely left she and Sherlock alone. Their association still came as a surprise to people, so she figured it must not have been mentioned anywhere in the mass media. Though she knew as soon as Andrea learned the truth about her soon-to-be niece or nephew's parentage, Anderson would be crowing from the rooftops. The Internet equivalent of rooftops, anyway - Facebook.

At 8:30, Molly frowned and looked around. Sherlock hadn't left a note, and he hadn't responded to the texts she sent asking where he was. She took the lift to the third floor, asking for Mary's room number at the desk. The charge nurse seemed to recognize her and smiled widely when she saw her coming. Molly rounded the corner and peeked in on John and Mary. Parents and baby were all asleep, and Sherlock was not there.

She felt her anger building. He had _better_ not miss this appointment. She had had several scans already because of the rough start of the pregnancy, but today would find out the sex and they would do a complete anatomical profile. It was important. She thought Sherlock had understood.

At 8:40, she descended to the lobby to meet her sister, sending a string of increasingly cranky texts to Sherlock. Sometimes he was pulled away unexpectedly by leads he had been waiting for, but he usually left her a note or at least replied to texts.

"Andrea," Molly called. The stately blonde turned at the sound of her sister's voice and smiled fondly at her. "This way."

The elegant accountant's heels clicked on the floor as she walked smoothly over to her rather frumpy sister. "So where is he?"

"I don't know," she said, trying to keep the disappointment out of her voice, motioning to her sister to follow her to the diagnostic imaging department. "I think he might have had something come up with a case. We've been here since just after three. Friend had a baby."

She ignored the happy news. "What do you mean, 'a case.'? You've not told me anything about this man, Mols. What does he do?"

Molly had been waiting for this moment for nearly three weeks. She stepped through the door into the reception area of imaging. "He's a consulting detective."

"A consul…" Andrea's perfectly made up eyes opened wider. "No! You're kidding!" she cried scandalously.

Molly couldn't help but laugh at her sister's gobsmacked expression. It was exactly what she had been waiting to see. "Molly Hooper, here to see Doctor Morecome," she said to the receptionist while her sister stood gaping at her. Carter had been performing her scans personally due to his professional curiosity about seeing her somewhat unique pregnancy through to the end.

Before Andrea could start peppering Molly with the questions she knew were coming, Carter rounded the corner and greeted the sisters. Molly had intentionally neglected to tell her flirtatious sister that her obstetrician was _gorgeous._ She'd planned the distraction to keep her from pestering Sherlock. Carter looked like he climbed out of a GQ every morning, his dark hair always just a bit tousled, plump lips always smiling. He had emerald eyes that were to die for. The man was fit, and modest to boot, and even single.

"Good morning, Molly my dear," he said happily. "This is your sister?"

"Andrea Hooper," she gushed at the man, extending her manicured hand. Molly could see the gears turning in her sister's head. "Pleased to meet the man taking such good care of my sister." She batted her eyes a bit too obviously.

Carter greeted her pleasantly, shooting Molly a sidelong 'help me!' look.

Molly would wait until later to tell her sister that the dashing Carter Morecome was gay as a picnic basket. Right now, she just wanted Sherlock to show up.


	13. Chapter 13

Andrea Hooper was a bright, bubbly, social butterfly of a person, her sister's complete opposite in many ways. The pair had been home educated by their mother who had died of a brain aneurysm rupture when Molly was fifteen, so they had not spent much time around other children. Molly had become something of an introvert, but Andy had gone completely in the other direction.

Andy - who now insisted on using her full name, something Molly never got used to - had taken over the last few months of Molly's education, taking a semester's leave from her studies at Oxford. Andrea had only been eighteen at the time but their father, a gentle yet gruff postman who had worked hard to support his family, was not an academic sort. Mary Hooper had left her work as a research biologist to handle the teaching of the two precocious girls as the family could not afford to send them to an independent school. Molly had written her A levels and UKCAT not long after her mother's death and began her medical training at King's only a few months after her sixteenth birthday.

The sisters had been rising stars, attracting some media attention in their small hometown as their achievements accumulated. Andrea read maths and economics at Oxford, graduating in four years with both degrees, at the age of twenty-one. She had been recruited by Barclay's before the ink on her degree was dry, though she'd been head-hunted by some legal firm in Cardiff not long after. When Andrea talked about her work, it made Molly's eyes glaze over in seconds. Most girls from their town married local blokes young, had a gaggle of kids, and were content with that. The Hooper girls hadn't been satisfied with that future.

Molly had completed her foundation years at twenty-three and entered her biochemical pathology specialist training that year. She had transferred to Barts two years into her pathology training, her reputation having resulted in the hospital requesting her specifically. Changing specialist programs was uncommon, though not unheard of, but Molly was glad to have ended up at the well-equipped hospital. She completed her training at twenty-seven, becoming one of the youngest specialist pathologists in the UK.

She had met Sherlock not long after she arrived at Barts as a Specialty Registrar eight years ago. She had been very introverted and terribly shy, but was the only person in the pathology department not completely put off by the painfully socially inept detective. From the first day she met him, she could tell he was on a vastly different level of cognitive ability than even she was, and it intimidated her. She was used to being the smartest person in the room, and he outpaced her by miles, but she recognized in him the same discomfort with interpersonal interaction she had. That he was incredibly fit didn't help. It wasn't until John came along three years later that the detective started seeming at all human.

The slow bloom of their friendship, and the undefined, but comfortable, closeness that had settled around them recently, made Molly exceptionally happy. But his conspicuous absence, at the moment, was pissing her right off.

"So, where's Sherlock?" Morecome asked, leading Molly and her sister down the hall adjacent to the reception area, towards the ultrasound suites.

Andrea smiled even more brightly at this independent confirmation of what her sister had told her. She was texting as they walked, something Molly was not coordinated enough to do. Her phone was buzzing frequently with new text alerts and Andy's fingers flew across the glass, responding as soon as the messages came in. Molly had a feeling that one Phillip Anderson was probably feeling a bit like Christmas had come early with the information that he must be receiving now.

"I don't know.," she said archly. "He was supposed to be here, but you know how he is."

Carter pulled his lips into a line "I can record the scan to a DVD for you, then. We'll just use suite four instead, it has that new machine," he said genially.

"How considerate of you," Andrea chirruped. Molly hated it when her sister tried to flirt. She worked in high level finance, where women were vastly underrepresented. While she described herself modestly as an accountant, Molly knew that Andy was really a shark. She was bubbly and vivacious naturally which had the effect of preventing men from being scared off when they found out that attractive women could be intelligent too.

Carter was making some awkward small talk with Andy as Molly stepped into the attached washroom to changed into a hospital gown. She kept her trousers on, but pushed down the wide, elastic waistband.

She checked her phone once again and huffed at the lack of messages from Sherlock. _Well,_ she said to herself, the hurt she had been trying to avoid feeling hitting her full force, _I shouldn't have gotten my hopes up._

Molly blinked a few times to stop the watering that had begun in her eyes. She composed herself and stepped back into the small room and lay down on the padded examination table.

Carter completed the standard anatomical scan quickly, carefully avoiding any angles that might allow Molly to see the sex before the _big reveal_ at the end. He had been describing the various structures to Andrea as he went. Molly was quiet, just watching the profile of her child on the monitor. She couldn't help the smile that split her face widely, matching the identical one on her sister's. The tiny hand moved, almost seeming to wave on the screen. Andy made a small noise of adoration when she saw it.

The obstetrician went quiet and his brow furrowed a bit. "I just need to take a look at this here before we finish up, Molly." He moved the transducer over to get a better look at one spot.

Molly knew that was where the tubal rupture had had to be closed. That she had reached nearly thirteen weeks of pregnancy before the ectopic twin was discovered had meant there was some damage to the part of her uterus where the fallopian tube usually opened. Morecome had been watching it carefully, worried that the scar tissue might prevent it expanding properly and could mean she would need an early caesarean to prevent any complications. Molly guessed from his expression that it might be the case.

"Well, Molly, the baby looks fine. I'm going to keep a close watch on that scar, though. Think it would be a terrible bother to have to deal with weekly scans from now on?" he asked her, a small twinkle in his eyes. He knew how much Molly loved seeing the small person she was growing. In that respect, she was just like every other pregnant woman in his care.

"I'm sure I'll cope with the hassle, Carter," she returned with a quirk of her lips.

"So, let's see what you're baking here, then," he said brightly. "Any thoughts before we put an indecent angle of your child on the monitor for everyone to see?"

"I think it's a girl," Andrea said definitively. "No idea why, just a feeling."

"I've never felt strongly one way or the other," Molly responded. She had read about 'mother's intuition' and whatnot, and hadn't put much stock in it. She really did have absolutely no idea the sex of the baby she was carrying, and hadn't spent much time thinking about it before now.

"Let's take a look, then. Do you have names picked out? I can type it so that it prints on the image."

She shook her head. "Haven't really talked about it yet. Something less boring than Mary Margaret and less interesting than Sherlock, but nothing specific. Now stop stalling," she laughed gently, "And show us the goods!"

He grinned at her, all perfect teeth and sparkling eyes. Carter knew how to turn up the charm.

The obstetrician squirted a bit more gel on her belly, and moved the transducer over. After only a moment's adjustment, he pointed at the screen.

"And there you have it, Molly my dear." He hit a small button, and a cheerful blue _It's a boy!_ popped up on the screen which displayed the evidence of that fact.

Molly smiled widely. Her sister grabbed her hand and bounced on the balls of her feet in excitement.

"I'm getting a nephew. OH this is _brilliant_ Molly! Absolutely brilliant!"

She'd had no opinion on the matter a minute before, but knowing now that she was expecting a son just felt _right._ Sherlock hadn't said anything about feeling one way or another, and she couldn't help but wonder whether he would be pleased. But he wasn't here. The tears she had been suppressing for the last half hour came on full force and she couldn't stop a small sob from escaping. _Bloody hormones. Get a grip, Molly._

"Sorry, just a little overwhelmed," she waved off the concerned looks. "Hormones, you know?" Molly had to admit to herself that it was an exceptionally convenient excuse these days.

"I've got to get going for rounds now, Molly." He pulled the fresh DVD from the machine, popped it into one of the little paper envelopes kept nearby and handed it to her. "Here you go. You might as well just bring Sherlock next week, and I can show him then too, alright? We'll need to start discussing our end game soon, anyway, and you might want him here for that."

She nodded, tucking the DVD into her purse. "Thank you, Carter. For everything." She gave him a small smile.

"It was a _pleasure_ to meet you," Andrea purred, shaking his hand once again. "Thank you for taking care of my sister and nephew." She smiled as she said the word. Clearly, Andrea Hooper had a new soft spot.

"I'll see you next week, at my surgery. I'll use the portable machine there, it should be fine for what we need going forward." He pulled the door open to exit and nearly ran into the tall, grey-suited man he hadn't noticed before. "Oh, excuse me…" he looked up and Molly heard the obstetrician gasp.

"Good morning, Carter," Mycroft Holmes said smoothly. Molly looked between the two men. Mycroft, expressionless as always, told her nothing, but she couldn't help but wonder at Carter's surprised look of recognition. _Interesting._ "Doctor Hooper, Miss Hooper," he greeted the sisters.

Carter cleared his throat softly. "Excuse me, Mycroft." The personification of the British Government sidestepped neatly and Carter exited stiffly. The crisp steps of his fine shoes sounded his rapid retreat down the hall. Molly made a note to ask Sherlock, whenever he deigned to show up, about the exchange.

Mycroft stepped in and hit the switch to turn on the lights in the room. He locked the door behind him, and twisted the blinds to ensure they were properly shut. Molly drew in a breath. She tried to avoid thinking about the nature of Sherlock's recent work. He was still in the lab, he still made amusing, sometimes embarrassing or rude observations about the people around him, though he had largely refrained from doing so as it related to her. While they were closer now, on the whole, his work hadn't seem particularly different except that he wasn't showing up with Lestrade as often.

It unnerved her to see that Mycroft was taking precautions against surveillance. Molly knew her guard would be just outside the room, blending in with the other people in the corridor. Over the past several weeks she had figured out who the people on her security detail were. They tended to be hidden in plain sight in public, but when she worked alone in the lab, their presence was somewhat unsubtle. She had spoken to a couple of the women - her entire detail was female, something for which she had intended to thank Mycroft - before, and occasionally made one of them tea. They had been instructed to interact with her as little as possible, but she thought it only fair she at least be able to speak with the people charged with her protection.

"Hand me your mobiles, please," Mycroft instructed, holding out his hand. Molly handed hers over, and inclined her head at her sister when she shot her an inquiring look. Mycroft placed the two phones in a long, thin case he had produced from somewhere in his suit. His eyes darted around the room, assessing. "Miss Hooper," he said to Andrea. She had been quiet since he entered, her flirtatious behaviour quelled when she sensed that this was not a social visit. She fixed the middle-aged man with a calculating look.

"Mister Holmes," she replied in the voice she typically reserved for work. "I know what that was. Some need for security, then," she said evenly.

Molly had seen the small Faraday cases before, too. Sherlock had showed her the one he kept on his mantle as a curiousity. They completely prevented any signal being transmitted from or received by a phone. He'd told her that governments and large corporations sometimes used them during high-stakes meetings to prevent leaks. Someone could pretend to turn their phone off, but they couldn't evade the laws of physics.

"Indeed." He gave Andrea an assessing look, and Molly had a sinking feeling that he was sizing Andy up for a new job. "While I am delighted" his expression did not indicate delight in the least "to hear about my forthcoming nephew, I am not here on a social call."

"Mycroft, what is going on?" Molly asked in a small voice.

Mycroft sighed and dropped his icy façade. He placed a gentle hand on Molly's shoulder and she froze, unaccustomed to being able to read emotion in those eyes, so very like Sherlock's. "Molly, I am so sorry. Sherlock is gone."


	14. Chapter 14

After Sherlock had jumped off of the roof of Barts hospital - and he had actually jumped himself, though Molly still didn't know the exact mechanism that permitted his survival - Mycroft and one of those horribly stereotypical, expensive black cars arrived at the hospital to officially identify the body, but unofficially secret his brother out of the hospital. Mycroft had arrived with two tall, thin, black-suited men and he left with what appeared to be the same two tall, thin, black-suited men.

When that part of the plan had been explained to Molly, as she had had to hide changes of clothes in the mortuary to allow for the switch, she had actually laughed at how horribly cliché it was, like something out of a film. But it had worked perfectly. One of the men that had arrived with Mycroft changed into casual clothes in the morgue and walked out of the front of the hospital. Sherlock had left with his brother, dressed and styled the same as the man whose place he was taking. People saw what they wanted to see, and no one had noticed the deception.

When Mycroft had arrived at the morgue that day, his mask of cold indifference broke for just a moment, but it was long enough that Molly could see that he was relieved that his brother's ludicrous plan had worked and that he was not being asked to identify Sherlock's actual corpse.

Molly did not know how the two men ended up so at odds with each other. Mycroft's icy calm to Sherlock's firey chaos certainly gave her somewhere to start, but it was obvious to those that knew them that the brothers were quite protective of one another, no matter how much they pretended otherwise. In the few interactions she had with the elder Holmes brother, Molly had decided she liked him. He was stiff and formal, but had a cutting wit where Sherlock was just cutting. Mycroft possessed the capacity for social finesse that his younger brother lacked. It certainly explained his ability to navigate the upper echelons of British power the way he did.

So she was more than a little apprehensive that the man that Sherlock had told her _is_ the British Government was standing here, telling her that the father of her child was gone.

Molly swallowed thickly, her mouth having gone dry. "What do you mean _gone,_ " she hissed.

"Before I say anything further, I will assure you that I do not believe we are being monitored, but consumer grade mobiles do have a _pesky little habit_ of being exceptionally easy to hack into. This morning, the security rating on Sherlock's file was increased and it is now a requirement to secure mobiles such as yours before his work can be discussed." He turned to Andrea. "I hope I do not need to detail precisely what my presence here requires of you. I am certain you are well versed in the need for _discretion_ in your work." Andy nodded solemnly.

"We get it, Mycroft. Official Secrets, cloak and dagger nonsense. Where. Is. Sherlock?" Molly felt very exposed in the thin cotton gown she still wore. She pulled it more tightly around her.

"I don't know," he said simply. "What's more, neither does anyone who is supposed to be aware of his whereabouts. It's not the first time he's gone haring off like this, but his usual avenues of escape were already being monitored."

"And because Sherlock knows London better than Google, none of your people can find him."

"Just so." He paused a moment, looking down at his own mobile, one Molly knew was heavily digitally secured. "Miss Hooper, I believe your sister would do well with some tea. Would you please be so kind as to fetch her a cup from the pathology lounge?"

The blonde woman understood that she was being dismissed. She looked from Molly to Mycroft with a worried look, but rose to leave. She opened her mouth to ask for her mobile, but a quelling look from Mycroft stopped her. She unlocked the door and exited into the hall. Mycroft locked the door again behind her.

Mycroft spoke in a cool, calm voice. "I learned early this morning that Sherlock was being redeployed against my express orders. He was to meet his contact at six this morning. She sent word that he hadn't made the meeting. My team pulled her out of the Thames an hour ago."

Molly's hand shot up to cover her mouth which had dropped open in shock. "You don't think…"

He shook his head. "She killed herself. I do not believe Sherlock was the direct cause of her death."

"Has he contacted you at all? Do you know why he left?"

"His absence is causing some upset, but I can only assume he is trying to avoid being sent away." Mycroft said simply.

Molly snorted in an unladylike fashion. " _Some_ upset. What did you mean he was being redeployed?"

"The decision was made that it was necessary for him to continue with the assignment from which he had been diverted in January."

"The suicide mission?" Molly whispered. Sherlock hadn't told her of his near-exile, but John had decided that Molly had a right to know what had happened. The detective's best friend knew she had proven able to keep a secret, and felt she could be trusted with the truth of what happened at Christmas, and the lengths Sherlock had gone to in the protection of the Watsons. Molly had been both horrified and moved by John's accounting.

John had only suspected that the mission in Eastern Europe was more of a death sentence than an assignment, but the tightening of Mycroft's hand on the handle of his ever-present umbrella confirmed that John's suspicion had been correct. It was the only sign Mycroft gave that he hadn't been aware she knew about that assignment. "I would not phrase it so indelicately, but yes."

"Why would they do that?" she asked in a small voice.

Mycroft pursed his lips. "I don't know. I don't like not knowing," he said darkly.

Molly ran her hand over her belly, still covered only by the thin cotton gown. "Please bring him home, Mycroft. You've done it before."

He looked at the small woman, allowing a bit of gentleness to creep into his voice. "I will certainly try, Molly." It was the first time he had addressed her with such familiarity.

The enigmatic Holmes had left Molly soon after, her mind turning over and her stomach in knots. She returned Andrea's phone to her and relayed the warning from Mycroft about secrecy. Molly was supposed to work after her appointment, but couldn't summon the will to go. She saw her sister off and then emailed the head of pathology to advise him she was taking a personal day. Deciding against walking the half mile home, Molly hailed a cab.

"221 Baker Street, please."

She paid and exited the cab twenty minutes later in front of the address that had become associated in the public's mind with Sherlock Holmes. She had sent John a text, telling him that Sherlock had to leave for something to do with the case and that she didn't know when he'd be back. The fact of the detective's disappearance would be known to anyone who dealt with him by now, so Mycroft had assured her it was safe to disclose that much, but she didn't want to worry John and Mary as they tried to settle into life as a family. There was nothing they could do right now, anyway.

Two people were standing outside the elegant black door and Molly looked at them curiously as she approached, realizing only too late that they were press. The taller of the two rounded on her and she heard the rapid-fire click of his camera shutter before she processed that they were waiting for her. The somewhat oily looking woman beside the photographer approached her, a falsely pleasant smile on her face. "Molly! Trinity Clarke, Daily Mail. I hear congratulations are in order! Do you have time for a few questions?"

"No, no thank you. I just…" Molly kept her head down and tried to get past the woman, but she stepped in front of her each time Molly tried to move to the side. "Please just let me by," she said pitifully.

"Are you certain you don't have a moment? Come, let me get you a cup of coffee. You look awfully tired," the journalist motioned to Speedy's, the café above which Sherlock lived.

"Hello Molly, dear!" Mrs Hudson called from the door. The nasty woman that had been blocking Molly turned to look, and the diminutive pathologist sidestepped her neatly and ran up the steps to enter the building.

"Thank you," she breathed to the older woman. "Are they always like that?"

"Oh, worse, dear. Much worse. Haven't been about much lately but Sherlock has been a bit quieter than usual. He's not been in all night, if you're here to see him." Martha Hudson lead her up to the second floor flat and set about preparing some tea.

"He might not be back for a while, actually," Molly told her, continuing the partial truth she had told John. "Something to do with his case. He left this morning. I just came to get some papers I think I forgot here."

Drawing from the happiness she'd felt early this morning, though it felt feigned right now, Molly tried to school her expression into one of excitement. "Mary had the baby last night! Sherlock and I were at the hospital to see her."

Mrs. Hudson beamed at her. "How did it all go, then? What did they name her?"

"Went well. They named her after Sherlock." The frustration and fear she felt abated momentarily when she saw the kind woman's face scrunch up in horror. Molly laughed.

"The poor dear thing… Saddled with a name like that." She shook her head.

"They named her Willa, after his first name, William. Just over six and a half pounds, and she's got curly blonde hair," Molly smiled at the memory. She had never really been one for babies, but her current state certainly put her in a more receptive state of mind about their charms.

"Willa Watson - that's a fair sight better than a girl named Sherlock!" The two women laughed. Hearing the kettle switch click, Mrs. Hudson returned her attention to making the tea. She hunted out the box of chocolate biscuits that Sherlock usually kept. "I'll have to go see them later. Have you told Miriam and Thomas?"

She clapped her hand to her face in frustration. John and Mary had been touched by how the Holmes' shared in their excitement about their daughter, and had asked Molly to ensure they were alerted when the newest Watson was born. "It _completely_ slipped my mind. I was going to ring them this morning after my scan but I forgot."

"Well I'm sure you can tell them all about it. Now - what is it? Boy or girl?" Molly's mind was pulled back to the disappointment she felt about Sherlock missing the appointment, and the fear that was gripping her now that the dangerous game he was playing seemed to be gearing up. It was hard to be upset around the perpetually happy and pleasant older woman, though, and she gave her a small smile.

"I'm having a boy," she said.

Mrs. Hudson gave her a bright, beaming smile. "Oh that's lovely dear. You'll name him something besides Sherlock, I hope."

"Yes, I don't think the world could handle two Sherlock Holmes."

"You're probably right, dear. I have to be going, but there's some tea and biscuits for you. Just lock up when you leave."

She left down the stairs and a moment later Molly heard her entering her own flat.

Molly hadn't been completely sure why she came here. She supposed she hoped to find something that would tell her when Sherlock was coming back, but she doubted there would be anything she could find that hadn't already been checked out by Mycroft's people. She poured herself a cup of tea and looked around as she waited for it to cool. The flat was its usual, moderately disorderly state. She didn't see anything conspicuously out of place.

His laptop sat open on his desk, a small mess of papers beside it. Nothing looked as if it had been disturbed in haste, as far as she could tell, but Molly was no detective.

The large web of paperwork that Sherlock had pinned to the far wall beside that ridiculous spray painted happy face was gone. Several pins remained with small torn bits of paper on them. Even she could see that meant they had been taken down in a hurry. Her brow furrowed, and she wondered if Sherlock had been the one to remove them.

She walked down the hall and walked through the open door to his bedroom. Molly almost compulsively closed doors behind her, and Sherlock's habit of leaving them open drove her to distraction sometimes. She had never been in his bedroom before - and marvelled somewhat at the neatness of it. Given the state of the rest of the flat, she couldn't help but be surprised. Again, nothing appeared out of place. Letting out a small huff of annoyance, she walked back into the hall, reaching for the door handle.

She heard a soft thump behind her as she pulled the door closed and turned back to look. A book had dropped into the doorway. She looked up at the top of the door and realized it must have been balanced on top of the door. _But why?_

She reached down and picked up the novel. It was one of Sherlock's favourites and he had been horrified that she had seen the film without reading it. Turning the book over to look at the back, she had to smile, and she knew it was a message Sherlock intended for her.

Printed on the back of the book, in large, friendly letters, were the words "DON'T PANIC."


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My thanks to Douglas Adams. If you're unfamiliar with the work, though I can't imagine how, the novel Molly picked up at the end of Chapter 14 was The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and the final line was a reworking of his description of said guide, and credit is due he for that.

_"I am not a villain. I have no evil plan. I'm a businessman, acquiring assets. You happen to be one of them,"_ Magnussen had said to John.

The newspaper magnate had said something before his, in Sherlock's opinion, long overdue end that had bothered him. _"Sometimes I send out for something… if I really need it."_

Four months ago, Sherlock had efficiently destroyed Appledore's only extant indexing system - Magnussen's mind palace. But that comment, spoken in his coldly triumphant voice, had rung as an echo in the chambers of Sherlock's mind.

When the bullet Sherlock fired from John's gun entered between the dead eyes of Charles Augustus Magnussen, Sherlock had in one motion assured the safety of any number of _very bad people._ The secrets and scandals that the man catalogued in his brain were the rolled up newspaper with which the political elite and the criminal royalty of the Western world were kept in line. With Magnussen rather suddenly out of the picture, many of those very bad people were getting very sloppy, and Sherlock had finally found the gap in the armour he needed last month.

He stood on the dark, empty rooftop of a residential building in the outskirts of London, gazing in the direction of the city's lights, so bright that he could see them at this distance even through the rain. Even this far removed from the city's beating heart, it was hard to see the stars on clear nights. The cold April wind blew his hair about his face. He had only just made his way back from the continent, and was grieving the loss of his Belstaff. The heavy coat was perfect for weather like this and had served him well, but he could ill afford to be recognized. It had given him no pleasure to methodically destroy the garment that had become as recognizable as he, but he couldn't leave behind something that could be so easily traced back to him.

The well-worn brown leather coat he wore was a simply inadequate replacement. He had _borrowed_ it from an angry, drunk, unemployed construction worker who was well on his way to cirrhosis at a busy pub in Dover. Sherlock hadn't felt a moment's remorse for dropping the drunk man's car keys unceremoniously in the skip behind the pub.

A sleek black car drove down the road in front of the building on which Sherlock stood. He reached for the rails of the rusted ladder and climbed down to the fire escape of the floor below, slipping silently into the ragged, empty flat through a broken window. He made his way silently through the abandoned building, the knockoff trainers he wore hushed his steps. Rainwater trickled down the corridor wall, pooling in one corner before running through the rotted floorboards.

Sherlock recognized most of the graffiti tags that covered the concrete stairs and breezeblock walls.

He exited the stairwell on the ground floor and walked unerringly towards the maintenance room of the derelict old block of flats. The building had been constructed in the prosperous period during the fifties during which the British government had actually tried to improve the living conditions of the poor. The flats had been home to people from London's East end when they were new, but they had fallen into disrepair and eventually disuse when they became more expensive to fix than replace and the social problems of the area made any suggestion of cash influx to improve the situation a political no-mans-land. The building had sat abandoned for several years, though was used intermittently as a drug den or clandestine brothel. It was due to be knocked down later today, so Sherlock had deemed it safe to spend the night, easily finding his way through the flimsy temporary fencing blazoned with 'KEEP OUT' signs.

He heard his contact before he could see him. The unmistakeable flap of a closed umbrella being spun to shake off the rain confirmed that he was meeting who he expected.

"You have no talent for sneaking around," sounded a voice from the dark. The detective rolled his eyes and entered the windowless concrete room. "You are thirty-seven years old, Sherlock. Learn to close doors." Mycroft reached over and closed the door behind the younger man.

"Pleased to see you too, brother dear. How's the goldfish?" he asked casually, removing a small, folding LED lamp from his coat pocket. He clicked it on and set it on one of the mouldy wooden shelves once used for cleaning supplies. The bluish light illuminated the room weakly, casting the sharp angles of each man's face into sharp relief.

"Rotund, weepy and prone to whinging," he returned. "Oh, but you're asking about the one you think I have. Wrong again, brother mine." Mycroft was well practiced with deceit, but Sherlock had caught the slightest tightening around his eyes and knew he'd scored a hit. His brother had lost half a stone and was wearing an Hermès tie, a brand he loathed, so it must have been a gift. Oh Sherlock could have _fun_ with this.

"What did you tell her?" Sherlock asked in a neutral tone. Mycroft would, of course, know that he was eager for news. Sherlock had managed to escape England in the early morning hours nearly a month ago and had been out of contact until he had made it to Dover near midnight and had managed to send Mycroft a coded message using a disposable mobile he'd activated in Paris.

"A simplified version of the truth. That you'd been redeployed and ran off." The anger had crept into Mycroft's voice. He spoke in the low, dangerous tone that Sherlock knew so well. "Unwise, brother mine. You knew this was coming."

"I hadn't completed the case, yet, Mycroft. I intend to see it through." He ran his hands through his hair, now dyed a muddy brown.

"You solved the case over two months ago, Sherlock. You were stalling. I distracted them as long as I could, but even _those people_ figured it out eventually."

Sherlock bounced from heels to the balls of his feet, rocking back and forth. "Mmm, nope." He popped his lips on the final syllable before launching into the rapidly paced speech he adopted when connecting his deductions. "I solved the mystery of the video before my plane had landed. You told me yourself at Christmas, Mycroft. You're getting sentimental in your old age." _Your loss would break my heart_ , the elder Holmes had said. "Not difficult to deduce that you wouldn't let me be sent off on a suicide mission. I was having fun wasting MI6's money leading them down the _rather obvious_ false trails you laid to keep them thinking there was more at play. You really need new people if it took them three months to figure out that I wasn't doing anything _remotely_ useful for them, but it was sweet of you to try to keep me in the country just a little bit longer. Really, I'm touched," he finished teasingly.

Sherlock paused and added, "That little hacker group you sent me to, though, you need to either hire or imprison them before much longer. They are talented, and they'll do pretty much anything for money."

Mycroft shrugged gently, splaying his hands out to the sides. "You must go where you are told. The decision about what to do with you isn't mine to make. You did murder Magnussen and I can't keep you from the consequences forever."

"Oh please, Mycroft. Don't insult my intelligence. The laptop you sent me with was a decoy. No crumbs in the keys, not a single scratch on it, no little hairs or dust in the hinge. There was nothing top secret about it. You gave him the information on Mary and sent Smallwood my way so that I'd have to take care of him. Magnussen needed to be dead and you made sure I had to do it. Give me credit for figuring that out, at least. Lots of people end up dead on your watch without _assets_ being sent off on suicide missions as punishment. Next time you plan to use me as an assassin, have the courtesy to tell me first so I can tell you to piss off."

The corners of Mycroft's lips curled downward. "There won't be a _next time_ , Sherlock. Your file will be inactivated as soon as I am able to secure the approval."

"Thank you," he said simply. "But that is going to be rather difficult. I may have solved the case I was brought back to investigate, but I've been on another since then. You've been slipping, brother dear. You have a rat. Several, probably." His brother's eyebrows furrowed and Sherlock went on. "Smallwood ordered me to meet the contact, said the Moriarty video case didn't deserve any more of my time and I was needed more in Serbia. I knew they'd figured you out. The contact was one of Moriarty's former operatives, someone who has absolutely no business in England, so I stayed back and made sure she didn't see me."

"That does suggest a bit of a problem. You think Smallwood is involved, then?"

Sherlock waved his hand dismissively, "Involved, yes, or at least being instructed by someone who is. She kept tugging me away any time I got close to something telling. I've dropped a few tidbits I have figured out and she hasn't picked up on anything so she doesn't have enough information to be a key player, but she probably knows who they are and they must be higher than her."

"And you are telling me this because you believe I am in danger," Mycroft deduced. "How _kind_ of you."

Sherlock shrugged. "Quid pro quo, brother mine. I thought I would return the favour. This is bigger than you. You can't _Deus ex machina_ your way out of this one the way you usually do. You will need to trust me and let it play out." Mycroft had a tendency to bring his power to bear in the most unpredictable ways to erase whatever problems faced him instead of actually resolving them. Sherlock felt it was a bit disingenuous, and knew his brother's usual methods would be useless in this mess.

"Are you sure that's wise?" he returned haughtily.

"Oh shut up, Mycroft." The older man's lips twitched up at the corners, and Sherlock knew that he was teasing. "I am not going to be able to stay. Our puppeteer knows that I'm onto them and probably has a net closing in. Doubtless they know you set up the video too. I have to stay below the radar while I finish this, but I will contact you when I have identified all the players."

Mycroft nodded and deadpanned, "Do try to avoid getting killed. It always generates an awful lot of paperwork and I don't much fancy having to _wade in_ to drag you back to London again."

"I'll miss you too, Mycroft," Sherlock said flippantly, the ghost of a smile about his lips.

The bright LED light reflected the cold blue of Mycroft's eyes as his inscrutable mask fell back into place. "I meant it. Stay safe. Your son will need his father."

Sherlock had returned the lamp to his pocket and the room was dark. The ambient glow of streetlights filtered through rain and dirty windows silhouetted the detective as he opened the door. Mycroft could not make out his brother's features in the dim light, but heard his brother's deep breath before he replied. "I know."


	16. Chapter 16

Molly left Baker Street the day of Sherlock's disappearance feeling sad, but hopeful. Whatever he was doing, it was necessary.

Since she had suddenly decided to take the day off, she felt a nap was in order. She set a reminder on her iPad to call Sherlock's mum in a couple of hours, and dropped off to sleep without another thought.

By the time she had woken up, her phone had fully charged and turned back on. She saw that she had two hundred emails that came through her work email address and several more that had come through her private inbox. They were dozens of messages of congratulations from Sherlock's fans. She read a few and smiled, but then came across one that had a photo of the outside of her building, and an ominous-toned, and slightly raving, message about Sherlock being boring because of her. The message rattled her and she closed out of it. She scrolled through the two hundred and forty emails she had received, between the two inboxes, and counted eighteen nasty messages, most of which appeared to have been written by six year olds who had just learned naughty words for the first time, but there were a couple that made her gasp.

She had been living with a security detail of her very own, appointed to her service by one of the most powerful men in the country, for over a month, and she had not once actually needed their protection, so far as she was aware. She supposed they might have stopped threats without her knowing, but she assumed she'd be issued some sort of report or something if that happened.

She poked her head out of her flat and looked around the corridor. Feeling absolutely mad to be doing so, she said quietly into the space, "Um, excuse me? Agent?" She felt the colour rising in her cheeks and, fearing that the neighbours would come home and see her talking to an empty corridor, she drew her head back in and closed the door. As she turned to walk into her sitting room, someone knocked.

 _I can't believe that actually worked._ She pulled the door open, and a broad-shouldered woman in a light grey, well-tailored pant suit that was not at all out of place in Smithfield greeted her and stepped into her flat. "Is there a problem, Doctor Hooper?"

"Please, call me Molly." She unlocked the screen of her mobile and quickly pulled up the threatening message. "To be honest, I feel a little silly bothering you with this, but I received this email…" She handed the phone to the stocky woman who scanned it quickly.

"Thank you for bringing this to my attention. Did you receive any others?" Molly nodded. "The best thing to do would be to forward them to Mr. Holmes for investigation. I assume he has provided you his email address?" Another nod. The agent gave Molly a tight smile. "Well, until I hear otherwise from him, I would like to stay by the door, if you don't mind."

"Um.. okay. Alright. Thank you." Molly paused, feeling a little awkward, but remembering her manners. "Would you like something to drink? Tea, coffee, water? Or maybe a chair?"

"Nothing, thank you, Doctor Hooper."

"You can just call me Molly, please."

"Molly." The agent smiled a little more brightly. "And congratulations, by the way."

"Thank you." Molly returned to her room, closing the door behind her, feeling it a bit odd to sit on the sofa across from the woman standing guard for her. She pulled up her contacts list and dialed Miriam Holmes' mobile number.

The older woman was elated to hear from her, and Molly apologized for not calling earlier. She hadn't spoken directly to Sherlock's mother before, though messages had passed between the women by way of the detective. Molly had been quite anxious about ringing her, as she still wasn't quite sure how the woman felt about her, though she knew that her son's grandmother was excited about the prospect of his arrival.

She told Miriam about Willa, and could hear in her voice that she was touched that the child had been named after her son, in a way. Molly waited until a natural break in the discussion of the newest Watson to tell Miriam her own news. In what was something Molly would never have expected of the woman, she actually let out a little screen, causing the pathologist to jump at the unexpected sound. They chatted amicably for several more minutes, until Miriam said she was going to get the next train to London so she could visit the baby. She told Molly in no uncertain terms that she was to allow her to bring her shopping so she might start indulging her grandson. They made arrangements to meet for supper the next evening and rung off.

Having nothing else to do for the rest of the day, Molly decided to read Sherlock's book. She'd not read any sci-fi in years, but when she had time, Molly was a voracious reader.

She was only five pages in when she started noticing something off. It wasn't obvious immediately, but small marks had been added onto certain letters.

She smiled to herself, realizing this was exactly the sort of thing Sherlock would do. She opened a blank note on her tablet and flipped back to the start of the novel, recording the marked letters in order. The short message was clear, though.

_IwillwritetoyousoonStaysafeS_

She took a deep breath, the emotion of the day catching up to her. She settled back comfortably in her bed, one hand on her abdomen where she had only just started feeling her son move. She looked down and back at the book, deciding finally that she may as well start his education now.

The parentage of Molly's baby hadn't exactly been a secret in that they didn't deny it if asked directly, but neither Sherlock nor Molly had volunteered the information to people not in their immediate social circle. The head of pathology was aware that Molly was expecting, as she had to make some workplace accommodations. She had been showing for several weeks now, so the fact of her pregnancy was well-established in the hospital, with even infrequently seen coworkers being aware of it. She was only nineteen weeks, but her small frame made the prominence of her belly quite obviously gravid, not simply fat.

As she had made no effort to conceal that Sherlock was the father of her child, except when she had playfully sidestepped the questions from her sister, Molly had simply not thought about the fact that most of the people who knew she was pregnant - that being the large staff at Barts - did not know who her son's father was.

She had decided to walk to work that morning as it was bright and sunny for a March morning in London. The air was warmer than she had any right to expect, and Molly wanted to take advantage of it. It was only a half mile walk from her flat on Fetter Lane to the hospital, and she chose to walk as often as possible.

Molly entered the lobby of the ancient hospital and noticed immediately that she seemed to be generating a wake of chattering. She caught several people looking at her, though they quickly looked at the ceiling, floor, or potted plants when she glanced their way. It wasn't far to the stairs that would take her to the basement level, where she could get to work on the post mortem she had scheduled for this morning.

She stopped by the pathology lounge for a cup of coffee - Health and Safety objected to her drinking that in the morgue quite strongly, but after eight years, they knew she was a lost cause - and her coworkers went silent when she entered. The two lab techs - Mark and Pradeep - looked like deer caught in headlights, but the other pathologist, also named Mark, held out a copy of _The Daily Mail_ to her. "Have you seen this?" he asked.

Blazoned across the top of the paper were the words "IT'S A BOY FOR BAKER STREET BOFFIN." She unfolded the paper, and saw that it was a photo of her outside Sherlock's flat yesterday, taken in the fraction of a second before she'd noticed the camera. Her trousers were rumpled, having slept on the sofa in this very room, and her eyes tired from the disruption during the night. She had left her coat open as she exited the cab and in the photo it framed her belly perfectly, making her appear far more pregnant than she actually was.

She scanned the short blurb on the front page quickly and burst out laughing. "Oh my god, they called me Morgue Molly. That is hilarious."

"So it's true?" Mark (the pathologist) asked incredulously.

Molly looked up at him. "Yyyes," she extended the word, thinking it obvious. "You didn't know I was pregnant?" She looked down at her belly. "Thought it was _fairly obvious."_

"The part about Sherlock Holmes being the baby's dad," Pradeep said. "That's true too?"

"Oh, yes. I thought everyone knew." She tried to think back to any time where anyone had asked her about the baby's parentage and no one had except her sister.

"Wow," said Mark (the lab tech.) "So you're his girlfriend?"

"Um… not… exactly?" Molly wasn't sure how to answer that. This conversation marked one of the longest interactions she had had with her pathology department coworkers in the eight years she had worked in the hospital. At work, she usually only spoke to the dead people unless John, Sherlock, or someone from NSY came by to discuss a case.

"I'm just going to go… go… cut up people now." Molly handed the paper back to pathologist-Mark and poured herself a coffee before scurrying out of the room, away from the awkward looks and probing questions of her nosy coworkers.

Molly hid in the morgue for the remainder of the day, leaving only for her increasingly frequent visits to the loo. At 4, she cleaned up and went to the locker room for a shower. The rather strong smell of the morgue didn't bother her at all. She was inured to it after so long, but she knew that it could be very off-putting for those unaccustomed to it. When the locker rooms had been remodeled some years ago, they had put in showers for the staff, a fact for which Molly was very grateful. She kept a large bottle of lemon juice in her locker to rinse the smell of death and dissection out of her hair - it was the only thing that worked.

She took great care to ensure she scrubbed well as she didn't want to bother Sherlock's mother. It was to be her first time meeting the woman, and Molly knew that she would have an unavoidable association with Mrs. Holmes for at least the next eighteen years. She dressed carefully, and blow dried her hair, deciding to leave it down instead of pulled back in her usual way. She applied just a touch of makeup, doing her best not to seem made up.

As Molly left work, she ignored the many pointed and curious looks, rushing to the stand of taxis that stayed outside the hospital entrance.

It wasn't a long ride to the posh Italian restaurant where Miriam had made the reservation for their early dinner. Molly walked in and handed her coat to the man waiting by the door. She was glad she had decided on nice black trousers and a simple, but pretty, dark blue empire-waist blouse.

The host bade her follow when she said she was there to meet Miriam Holmes. As she approached, a well-dressed woman in her sixties, silver-blonde hair in an immaculate French twist, rose to meet her. Molly smiled shyly, unsure how to greet the grandmother of the child she was carrying, but Miriam headed off any awkward standing about by pulling Molly into a maternal embrace.

"Molly dear, I am so very happy to meet you."

The two women chatted animatedly over supper. Molly found the former mathematician to be engaging and incredibly intelligent. Her pointed observations and quick wit put Molly at ease quickly. She was surprised that Miriam asked her about her work, and seemed fascinated by her detailed descriptions of interesting cases. The woman's ability to see right to the quick of things was so like Sherlock's that Molly found herself hoping her son would share it as well. She was not a woman who typically made friends easily, but she felt that she and Sherlock's mother would get on well, and she felt a weight rise from her shoulders that she hadn't even realized was there.

After a fantastic evening at the shops spending far more money than she expected on things for the little boy she would welcome in a few months, Molly returned home laden with bags and fell into a happy slumber.

The rest of the week was entirely ordinary. Molly Woke up, went to work, avoided talking to living people, gushed over the photos of Willa that Mary posted on Facebook about a hundred times a day. On Friday morning, she was walking to her office when the internal post distributor stopped her and handed her a letter. The address was handwritten on the plain white envelope, and she could feel that it contained several pages. There was no return address. She turned it over, and written across the seal of the envelope was a swirling motif of overlapping letters. A scripted S and H were elegantly intertwined in black ink on the back of the envelope.

Molly rushed the rest of the way to her office to read the first communication from Sherlock in days.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In HLV, when we see Dynamics of Combustion, the book on mathematics (though I'd be inclined to think of combustion dynamics as a discipline of physics but I digress) but the cover also says "By: M. L. Holmes." Her actual name isn't revealed so I decided it is Miriam.


	17. Chapter 17

Sherlock's first letter assured her that he had had no choice but to leave to ensure his, and her, continued safety. He expressed that he was pleased to discover, by way of Anderson's blog, that they were expecting a healthy son and immediately started referring to him as Sherrinford. Molly truly, truly hoped that he was joking. He said nothing about where he was or when he would be back, but included some humourous observations of people he had come across. He asked her to let John know that he was okay, and wrote that he would contact her again when it was safe to do so.

While sending things by post was safer for him as the letters could not be used to find him in seconds as would be the case with email or text, Molly was frustrated that she could not respond to him. The postmarks were all different, indicating he was on the move. It wasn't until she received her third letter with a reference to Anderson's blog that she understood he was giving her a hint, at least she hoped so.

She hadn't written anything in her blog for years, but her laptop remembered her credentials. The first thing she did was delete everything related to _Jim from IT_. The late, unlamented psychopath was best forgotten. She clicked the 'confirm' with a bit of a flourish as she deleted the last of his digital ghost.

After toning down the pink and removing the kittens, she stood staring at the _new post_ form. What would it be safe to say, and would he even see it?

_April 8, 2015_

_It's still cold and wet in London. When is it not? I hope you get to read this. I don't know what to write. I miss you. Stay safe._

_Also, I am not naming my son Sherrinford._

She clicked **Post** and closed her laptop. When she was elbow-deep in one Michael Morriston's abdominal cavity a short while later, she heard her mobile's email tone. It was not until her lunch break that she had a chance to check it.

It was an email notification that she had an unmoderated anonymous comment on her blog awaiting her approval before it would post. The email included the short message which was submitted without any name or email address.

_I miss you and Sherrinford as well._

She laughed softly and, truly feeling she could smile for the first time in over a week, tucked into her lunch.

* * *

_April 13, 2015_

_I took my friends out for lunch today, their first outing since little Willa was born two weeks ago. She is starting to get cute now. Newborns are almost never cute, but this one is growing on me, which might have something to do with my current status. I'm twenty one weeks today, thinking of names. Not much sounds good with Hooper. Think I might just name him John._

_I miss you._

As she was preparing for bed that evening, she received another anonymous comment email just as she had for the other six posts she had written this week. A single word;

_Holmes._

Molly pursed her lips in thought. She and Sherlock never had discussed whose family name their son would have. Hooper-Holmes just sounded awful. Hooper anything sounded a bit ridiculous, she had to admit, but she wanted her son to have the same last name as she. She opened the blogging app she had downloaded to her mobile and posted again.

_April 13, 2015_

_I think John_ _Hooper sounds about right. Perfectly ordinary._

After a half hour, he hadn't commented, so Molly settled into bed. Sherlock had been asleep beside her for the first time in months only a few hours before he had left two weeks ago. She reached for the pillow he habitually used when staying with her and hugged it to her chest, missing him most acutely.

As she was drifting off to sleep, her mobile chimed.

_Of all the things he might be, our son will never be ordinary._

And soon, another, as if he had hesitated before sending it.

_After all, he will be a Holmes._

* * *

In the basement of MeriCore Pharmaceuticals' London headquarters in late April, Sherlock Holmes was re-evaluating his life choices whilst wedged between an uncomfortably hot server rack and the tiles of the hung ceiling.

For years, Mycroft had attempted to involve Sherlock in MI6 opportunities. He had been persistent in his desire to use Sherlock's deductive skills to solve some sticky problems that plagued him. Sherlock had generally taken great pleasure in refusing his brother's _kind invitations_ in the most frustrating of ways.

Molly had jokingly said he was _playing James Bond_ during the time he was actually working for MI6. He thought the comparison ludicrous, particularly as he had not done any meaningful work for the SIS before he had summarily quit by fleeing the country.

But at the moment, arms and legs held tightly to his sides so that he couldn't be seen from between the racks of the data centre, camera full of sensitive information in his pocket, he was beginning to think a martini after this night was over might just be a _tiny_ _bit appropriate._

* * *

For the second time that night, Molly Hooper trudged out of bed to the washroom. She had been lucky thusfar to experience almost none of the discomforts typically associated with pregnancy, but now at twenty-three weeks, she could hardly remember what it was like to be able to sleep a whole night without the interruption of needing the loo.

In the dark, she padded back to her bedroom, nearly tripping on her cat, Toby, as he ran in the opposite direction.

"I am going to order better locks for your windows," said a baritone voice quietly out of the dark.

Molly's eyes widened in shock at the sight of the detective, lit only by the glow of the streetlights diffusing through her blinds, sitting in her bed.

She moved quickly to him and threw her arms around his shoulders, gripping him tightly. "You're back," she breathed. He brought one hand up to encircle her.

"Yes, I'm back."

"Are you staying?" she asked hopefully, crawling up onto the bed to sit beside him. She reached over to turn on the light.

He lifted his shoulders in a non-committal shrug. "It will depend what I hear in the morning, but I think so. I need to see Lestrade in the morning. Mycroft probably wants to see me now, but he can wait. How are you?"

"Good. Fine. Little overwhelmed. I was worried something happened to you after you stopped replying last week." She couldn't prevent the jaw-cracking yawn that followed.

His expression darkened. "Something did happen, but it's dealt with now. I'm fine, and intend to stay that way." He brought his arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer, planting a soft kiss on the top of her head. "I missed you."

She closed her eyes, leaning into him and laying her head on his chest. "I missed you too. Will you stay here tonight?"

"I was hoping to. Baker Street isn't secure yet and I'd rather not sleep in an alley again. Also, I _need_ a bath." His voice was a rumble beneath her ear. She smiled sleepily.

"Yes, yes you do. You know where it is. There's an old t-shirt," she paused to yawn again "and some pajama pants of Tom's in the back of the closet."

He frowned, but rose and fetched the items from the closet. "I won't be long."

Molly's flat had a washer/dryer in the small storage room beside the washroom and she heard Sherlock start the cycle before he stepped into the shower. When he returned, clean and dressed in Molly's ex-fiance's forgotten clothes, he turned off the lamp and slid silently into the bed beside her.

When Sherlock had started using her flat as a bolt-hole during his lengthier or more dangerous cases, not long before his faked death, he had unceremoniously claimed the bed as he complained the sofa was far too short. Completely unable to refuse anything he asked at the time, besotted as she was, Molly had simply not argued and had taken to sleeping on the sofa when he dropped by unexpectedly.

After his _resurrection,_ as she had taken to thinking of it, things had been different because of Tom. Selfish though he could be, Sherlock had at least stayed away when she was engaged, but a week after John and Mary's wedding, he had shown up unannounced late in the night. He climbed into her bed, waking her from her slumber. It was the day she and Tom had broken up, and Molly had been utterly miserable. She had fully intended to tell Sherlock to leave her alone because she had had a horrible day and wanted to sleep in her own damn bed _thankyouverymuch._

But before she had awoken enough to decide to tell him off, he had been asleep - a talent of his she envied - and had sleepily draped his arm over her waist. She gave up on trying to decide whether to wake him or not, and had just dropped off to sleep. It was the best night's sleep she had had in a very long time.

She hadn't seen him for most of the next month, but during the weeks between his release from hospital and when he had left for the ill-fated Christmas with his parents, Sherlock had spent most nights in this bed with her, some otherwise occupied, but most just sleeping with his arms about her. She had missed his presence in her bed very much during the last several months.

Molly reached over and pulled his hand onto her belly. He resisted the motion at first, but relaxed and let her push his hand into her belly. Molly felt the small wave of motion that she knew to be her son turning around. "Do you feel that?"

"Mmm," came his muffled reply. She smiled into the dark and, twining her fingers with his, closed her eyes. She heard him speak quietly, voice heavy, "m' happy to be home. With you." He pulled her tighter against himself and let out a relieved sigh as he dropped off to sleep.

Molly turned in his arms and placed a soft kiss at the corner of his lips. "I'm glad you're home too."


	18. Chapter 18

The last time Sherlock had been in the news conference room at New Scotland Yard, he was being hailed a hero after the capture of Peter Ricoletti. It had been several years, but the room hadn't changed at all. Same cheap folding tables, same blue backdrop, same plastic chairs, though several had been replaced with differently coloured ones.

Mycroft had given Sherlock latitude to decide where the news conference would take place and he had not wanted to use one of the many governmental rooms that existed for such purposes. Not today.

His brother lurked in the corner, seeming cloaked in shadow in this otherwise bright room. His cold eyes roamed the room slowly, taking in each of the entering journalists, looking every bit the Ice Man. Sherlock saw him watch one a fraction of second longer and then take out his mobile to quickly type a message. A large, burly man in a black suit sidled up beside the journalist, whispered something to her, and gently, but firmly guided her out of the room by her elbow. Far more efficient to let Mycroft handle the screening of the journalists than going through tedious official channels for security clearances.

Lestrade was already seated at the high table beside a severe man with close-cropped hair in a dress uniform. Sherlock, dressed simply in a dark, tailored suit and navy shirt, felt overly exposed without his coat and scarf. He took his place between Lestrade and the Commissioner as the last of the journalists arrived. They had called the conference only thirty minutes prior, but the seats were nearly filled and the room was ringed with cameramen.

Red lights blinked to life on the fronts of dozens of large cameras. Digital recorders were activated, and dozens of London's finest journalists sat, mobiles at the ready, waiting to be the first to tweet, blog, or otherwise digitally convert that which they were about to hear.

Lestrade cleared his throat and a silence decided. A hundred faces in the room, a third of them obscured by camera lenses, turned to look at him.

"Good morning," he said in his clear, steady voice. "Thank you all for coming on such short notice. I will let everyone make their introductions and then we can begin. We will not be taking questions today. I am Chief Inspector Greg Lestrade, Metropolitan Police Force." The pride in his voice at his new rank was audible. He turned to look at the man to his left and the cameras followed.

"Lieutenant General Sir Merriweather Morecome, Royal Military Police."

"Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis Shelagh Masterson," said the prim woman sitting at Sherlock's left.

Sherlock sat rigidly, his expression blank, and gazed into the cameras as they turned to him. "Sherlock Holmes, Joint Intelligence." The journalists' eyes widened and several of their mouths dropped open in surprise. He saw several begin typing furiously on their mobiles. The information would be on Twitter in seconds. _Perfect._

The newly-promoted Chief Inspector Lestrade spoke a bit more loudly, drawing the attention of the representatives of the UK's media outlets back to him, reading the prepared text from the clear teleprompter set several feet ahead of the table. "Approximately one hour ago, the Metropolitan Police Service, in a coordinated effort with the Royal Military Police and Britain's intelligence services, took several high-ranking members of an international terrorist organization into custody." The hum of conversation rose from the collected ranks of journalists, but Lestrade raised his hand in a bid for silence. "Those arrested include several members of Her Majesty's Government, the foreign service, and numerous private individuals. I turn your attention to Lieutenant-General Morecome."

The straight-backed man beside Lestrade cleared his throat and spoke in a resonant voice. "The Royal Military Police discovered several points at which the terrorist network headed by James Moriarty had infiltrated the British Armed Forces during operations in Afghanistan. In the course of our investigation of these potential weaknesses, we uncovered evidence which necessitated the involvement of other agencies both in Britain and abroad. As I speak, security services across Europe are briefing their respective heads of state on the successful outcome of our combined efforts."

Sherlock took a sip of water and spoke clearly, unerringly, the words that had been prepared for this moment. "Information that compromised the security of the nation and her allies was found in the possession of a privately held corporation with ties to this criminal network. Britain has provided intelligence to the governments of several allies, and as of this morning, the coordinated strike against the leadership of this terrorist organization has been successful."

His expression was neutral, cold, and he looked every bit the mouthpiece of Mycroft Holmes - ever the man behind the curtain - that he was today.

Over the course of the next half hour, the English public would learn that two years of covert international work had uncovered a multinational shell corporation which lead Britain's security services to the organization responsible for the bombs beneath Westminster in the Bonfire Night Plot. They would learn of an internal power struggle that ultimately lead to the deaths of multiple high-profile individuals both within and under the influence of this corporation. They would hear about one of the largest, most carefully coordinated multi-governmental intelligence operations of the decade which took out the network in one fell swoop.

It would have the press humming for weeks about the scandal of it all. The highest levels of government compromised! International intrigue! Organized crime! It was shocking, it was _lurid._

And some of it was even true.

* * *

"You're telling me that you, _you¸_ actually agreed to this?"

 _No more than two hours of sleep last night. Second day wearing that shirt - dry baby sick on the sleeve. Not at his best._ "Of course. I can't have MI6 trying to send me back to Serbia again. That was a _disaster._ "

"But you're Sherlock Holmes!"

He raised his eyebrows, looking levelly at his friend. "What about that precludes me from entering the service of my country?"

"I'm not an idiot, Sherlock."

"Mmm," he pursed his lips. "I wouldn't go that far, John." Sherlock adjusted the infant that an exhausted John had unceremoniously shoved into his arms upon his arrival. Willa had fallen asleep within seconds and was now little more than a warm weight.

The retired soldier's expression froze momentarily as he seemed to be deciding whether or not he was being insulted. "You know what I meant. You consider laws _optional._ You shoot things when you are bored. Two days without a case and you start climbing the walls. You'd rather die than sit at a desk and take orders. How the hell are _you_ involved with Joint Intelligence?"

"I swore and oath and signed a number of vaguely threatening documents. Their screening process is on the website, John, really. _Do_ your research."

"You can't seriously be telling me that you _actually_ work for them."

" _For_? No," he drew out the sound of the o pensively. "I report directly to Mycroft."

John's eyes widened and he let out a puff of air, shaking his head. "Now I know you're joking."

"I'm _really_ not." He shuffled his tiny namesake onto one arm and reached out for his cup of tea. "Orders for my transfer came down from on high. I'm sure they consider it punishment. Not sure for which of us. Probably both."

"Right, then. So you actually have an actual job now, and you're a bloody spy."

Sherlock snorted. " _No_ , I'm an analyst. You married the spy. Actually, I might know of a job opening well suited to her talents," he added thoughtfully.

"You can shut up right about now, Sherlock," Mary said brightly as she entered the sunlit kitchen of hers and John's flat. She paused to smile at the sight of the formally-dressed man holding the sleeping infant. "You're getting good at that."

"Practicing," he said simply. "I don't know why your husband keeps complaining, Mary. I haven't had any trouble getting her to sleep."

"You try doing that at three in the morning and we'll see if you're so smug about it then," John muttered petulantly.

Mary poured herself a cup of coffee and leaned her hip against the counter, watching the two men in her kitchen. "So you're really working for Intelligence?"

"Yes! Is it so hard to believe?"

Mary shrugged as she spoke. "Well, yeah. You're Sherlock Holmes."

" _Why do people keep saying that_?"

* * *

Sherlock was bored. As his sitting room wall could attest, boredom and he were a dangerous mix. He was waiting for _something_ but hadn't yet deduced what. He sat on his chair with his feet pressed together in front of him, elbows on his knees and hands drawn up in front of his mouth.

In his mind he saw, as clearly as if it were still there, the spider's web of papers he'd had pinned up above his sofa.

It started with Doctor Brown, the professor of organic chemistry who had met a grisly end in his own kitchen. The lab-grade glassware and purified components of which he had been able to isolate traces told him that the property had been used by a professional outfit, not clandestine cookers borrowing a conveniently empty house.

Sherlock had met Professor Brown before his death, in passing, when he delivered a lecture on his original research during Sherlock's time at Cambridge.

Samples gathered from known entities in the underground economy of London, where Sherlock still maintained many very useful contacts, allowed him to identify that the methamphetamine being produced in Dr. Brown's kitchen was made using many of the same chemical stores as that being distributed by one of London's largest gangs.

Once he had identified the distributors, tracking down their primary production facility had been simple enough and from there, the connection to one of MeriCore Pharmaceuticals' primary distribution arms was obvious.

Moriarty had owned MeriCore, a fact that had been known by the government before his death. It had been one of his most versatile tools in building his empire, allowing him to move money, people, drugs, at will.

It had not been a difficult leap to identify that the distributors from which the materials for the Westminster bombs had been constructed were all linked to MeriCore either directly or through a daisy chain of subsidiaries. It was there that he had started seeing what he deduced to be Magnussen's influence. From pressure on import authorities, a few mysterious suicides, a pattern was emerging, but he had no confirmation. Lestrade had helpfully provided him with information on cases, some older, some more recent that had been quietly shelved or mis-classified as crimes barely worthy of investigation.

He deduced that Magnussen had overtaken MeriCore's less-than-legal enterprises soon after Moriarty's death. The _why_ was evident: MeriCore's illicit activities necessitated that there be more than a few politically or economically powerful people who turned blind eyes. Magnussen would most definitely have known who these people were, and that would have allowed him access to the company entirely.

He had identified several likely sites of Magnussen's physical information stores, which were the key evidence that his _handlers_ at Joint Intelligence required. No matter John's disbelief, Sherlock actually had been unhappily reporting to Mycroft directly since January, as one of his _conditions,_ though his unscheduled departure from England had temporarily strained that reporting relationship. He had been preparing to investigate them when he received a rather abrupt notice that he was being reassigned by someone with no authority to do so.

Smallwood had been sloppy. As was the norm, she allowed some small security leaks in her service; some known spies she could ensure would _find_ some small bits of sensitive information. Never anything too damaging, but just enough to keep them thinking that they had infiltrated her office. It was a basic tactic of counter-intelligence. But her service actually had been infiltrated, and she had been unaware that she had sent one of Moriarty's former employees to meet Sherlock.

He hadn't actually intended to go along with the plan to redeploy him - he had more than enough intelligence on Magnussen by that point to ensure that no one would even think of charging him for shooting the creepy bastard - but was curious if what he suspected was true.

The woman he was to meet had never noticed that the ragged, drunk homeless man apparently sleeping in the alleyway near where she waited was, in fact, the man she was waiting for. Twenty minutes after their meeting time had passed, she had sent off a text. Almost immediately afterward, she had received a phone call that caused her to look about in fear. She hadn't even made it to the next block before she had been pulled into a black car with darkened windows.

Clearly, _someone_ was still tugging on dear old Jim's spider web even now that Magnussen was gone.

_But who?_

He hadn't found out during the month he spent locating the sites he had deduced existed. He had returned to England with plenty of information, but nothing that would identify who had succeeded Magnussen.

There was still a spider spinning, and as Sherlock reviewed his actions of the last week, he was not positive whether or not he was the hunter or the prey. But until he had more information, he would need to lie in wait to see which line would dance.

For the moment, though, Sherlock Holmes was dreadfully bored.


	19. Chapter 19

"I think we should get married," Sherlock announced perfunctorily upon entering the lab to meet Molly for lunch.

Upon hearing him enter, Molly had turned from the incubator where she had been placing some cultures. "Hel… _ **what**_ _?"_ It took her a moment to realize what he had said.

"I think we should get married," he repeated levelly.

Molly's look of surprise made it clear this was the last thing she had expected. "What? No!"

" _No?"_

"No! You think marriage is a ridiculous social construct and you compared it unfavourably to murder _at a wedding._ " Molly said firmly.

"I was right. Murder _is_ faster and _far_ more interesting."

She quirked a smile at him, still confused but the shock fading quickly from her expression. "That may be, but you can't expect me to believe you've suddenly decided you like the idea."

"You want to get married," he said pointedly. "You were engaged."

"Because Tom asked me. I did break things off with him, remember. Obviously didn't want to get married _that_ badly." She crossed her arms over her chest. "But I'm sure you have some explanation for why you think it's a good idea. Go on, then."

"I'm reasonably attractive," Molly snorted and he shot her a glare. "Gainfully employed. And you're carrying my child. Most would argue that alone is a good enough reason."

"Maybe in the 1950s. Hardly a scandal to be a single mum these days." She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I meant it, Sherlock. I don't expect anything. I do well enough on my own that I don't need anything from you. I don't expect a wedding or grand displays, a life full babies and a house with a.. a.. garden and a dog and... normal things." She paused, but continued quietly. "I tried to be ordinary like that and failed. That's not who I am. And it isn't who you are."

Sherlock dropped onto one of the stools, clapping his hands together and adopting a casual air. "Right, then! If you could tell my mother your opinion on the matter, that would be _lovely._ "

"She's been after me about it too," Molly said with a laugh. "Might have to do it just to shut her up or I'll never hear the end of it for her grandson not being a Holmes."

An inscrutable impression crossed the tall man's features. " _I_ want him to be named Holmes. You _do_ know about the Holmes estate?"

"Of course. Your mum tried to have me meet with the family solicitor," she emphasized the last two words. She had been very touched by Miriam's concern for Molly's and her son's futures, but had been a bit overwhelmed by her attempted generosity. As a consultant pathologist, Molly had a comfortable standard of living, but nothing like the one Sherlock had grown up with.

Molly had known Sherlock long enough to have picked up that he was from a privileged background. It was hardly a difficult deduction; the posh accent, public school formality, his two thousand pound coat, designer clothes. And absolutely everything about Mycroft just screamed _old money_. When Miriam had casually mentioned _the country house_ it had confirmed Molly's suspicions. The daughter of a postman, she had had a modest upbringing herself and knew what sort of people could so flippantly mention their extra properties.

"Why are you stuck on this, Sherlock?"

He had folded his hands in front of his mouth and was watching her carefully. He closed his eyes as he spoke, "I just want to ensure you are taken care of."

"I can take care of myself," Molly huffed. He met her gaze

"In case something happens to me and I can't be there," he said in a low, soft voice.

She examined his expression carefully, seeing that he was holding back. "Sherlock, what is going to happen?"

"Something. I don't know what. But something soon," he sighed.

One of the final pieces clicked for her. "Oooh, and you want an obvious excuse for us to leave London on _holiday_ before it does," she said.

"Bit obvious, I know, but you keep turning down Mycroft's offers of a safer location."

"I'm saying no to you too. I am staying in London." Molly crossed her arms over her chest, pursing her lips. "You've already pissed off almost every organized crime outfit in the country. I've been getting threats from people who hate you ever since Anderson started telling everyone that I helped you fake your death."

"First time that idiot ever deduced something correctly," Sherlock said with a smirk.

"And I've helped put plenty of criminals in prison too. You know, _as part of my job._ " Molly gave him a challenging look. "I can't just completely stop my life because you've got a few more people than usual looking to give you a bloody nose."

"An international terrorist organization is hardly _a few more people._ "

"I'm not some damsel in distress for you to lock in a tower! I'm staying here, Sherlock!" She pulled herself up to her full five-feet-three inches and glared at him defiantly.

He stood abruptly and closed the distance between them in three quick strides. Hands on each of her shoulders, his voice anguished. "You are six and a half months pregnant. You can barely walk straight let alone protect yourself. Your security detail is a minor inconvenience to the sorts of people who would use you against me and they know it. Molly, I can't work, I can't _think_!" He pulled her into a tight embrace and rested his chin on her head. "I can't lose you. Either of you."

"You won't," she said quietly, a bit muffled as she was held to his chest. "We're here to stay, as long as you are."

They stood in silence for several minutes, locked in an almost desperate embrace, in the lab where they had met eight years before. Then, a hauntingly beautiful graduate chemist who had finally found an alternative to the drugs in which he had drowned himself for years and the shy, quiet, specialty registrar who helped him in the lab with the crime solving that was his salvation. Now, an intelligence analyst and his consultant pathologist.

"Then marry me anyway," Sherlock whispered.

"Still no," Molly said into his shirt.

"I tried," he said, chuckling.

* * *

Sherlock sat primly in the rich, dark leather chair across from Mycroft in his grey-walled office, the most secure room in all of Britain. It was here that he had been dragged and cleaned up following his extraction from Serbia. He and Mycroft stared at each other across the desk, matched expressions of disinterest on their faces, a gleaming alabaster chess board between them. Sherlock's long, pale finger rested on the pawn he had just used to take out his brother's knight. He examined the board and released it, signalling that it was Mycroft's turn.

"As usual, you fall for the easiest of traps," the older man said evenly. With barely a second glance at the board, he made his move.

Sherlock analyzed all possible outcomes and huffed, leaning back in his chair.

"I will always win, Sherlock. Don't know why you even bother playing against me."

"How's Carter?" Sherlock asked, changing the subject with an innocent smile. Molly had told him of a _most interesting_ encounter between her obstetrician and his brother on the day Sherlock had left England. He had deduced upon his return that Mycroft might be falling prey to _sentiment,_ of all things. It had given Sherlock an almost unholy glee when he had met Sir Morecome at the news conference and observed the subtle signs that pointed to carefully concealed loathing that passed between his brother and Carter Morecome's estranged father.

"Tsk tsk, Sherlock. Surely you're not still gnawing at that old bone. I am not seeing Carter Morecome. I am not _seeing_ anyone _."_ He brushed a non-existent bit of dust from his lapel. "You've gone soft since your domestication, seeing _sentiment_ everywhere."

"Domestication, is it?" Sherlock peaked his hands in front of his face, favouring his brother with a superior look. "I'm just biding the time. He'll make a move soon."

"Finally figured it out, have you?"

"Elementary, my dear brother."

"Go on then." Mycroft leaned back in his own chair and mirrored Sherlock's casual posture. "Enlighten me."

"No, no, _noo,_ Mycroft, you need to figure it out for yourself. That's half the fun!"

"I am, strictly speaking, your boss, Sherlock. Your deductions are Crown property these days," the Ice Man said with far too much satisfaction for his brother's liking. "I _own_ you."

"For now. In a few weeks, this will all be a bad memory. I'll go back to my work, you can return to attempting to pay off my friends to spy on me for you. You know, you paid off Lestrade's mortgage. He sends his thanks."

Mycroft steepled his fingers in front of his mouth. "Oh no, brother mine, you won't be getting rid of me that easily."

"My resignation has already been approved for as soon as this nonsense is over, Mycroft. Even _you_ can't force me to stay in this bloody job any longer than I'm required to." Sherlock ran a hand through his hair, annoyed.

"There is nothing I am looking forward to more than your final debriefing. No," he added coolly. "I do want to ensure my nephew has some _sane_ influences in his life."

"You must be joking. You loathe children, Mycroft. You'd terrify him." Sherlock cocked his head. "Unless I'm not the only one _getting soft._ "

Mycroft glared at his younger brother with disgust. "Don't be absurd. Incidentally, how did the proposal go?"

"Turned me down flat. It was _rather obvious_ that it was a pretense." He resisted shifting under his brother's penetrating gaze.

"Was it _really_ a pretense, Sherlock? You have been rather…" he made a vague gesture with his hand " _emotional_ of late."

"Shut up, Mycroft." The elder brother smirked.

Mycroft's mobile - the only one that worked in this bloody bunker of his - rang. Sherlock's eyes darted to the screen - _Carter (Mobile) -_ before his brother snatched it away. He smirked in triumph.

"Yes?" Mycroft's eyes widened, and his free hand tightened into a fist. "Where? Yes… Right away… I'll tell him. He's here." Sherlock shot up in his seat, alarmed. Morecome would only be asking for Sherlock if it had to do with Molly.

"What is it?"

"Molly is being flown to the Royal London." A worried edge had crept into Mycroft's voice.

Before his brother had even finished speaking, Sherlock was on his feet and had exited through the door, pulling his new Belstaff on as he walked. Mycroft scrambled out from behind his desk and caught up with his brother in a few long strides. They reached the lift at the end of a short corridor and, exiting on the first floor, Sherlock ran to the waiting car outside, followed by Mycroft at a rapid, but more dignified, pace.

During the twenty minute drive to Whitechapel Road, Mycroft informed Sherlock that Molly had been taken directly from Doctor Morecome's surgery to the hospital after her scan. Sherlock kept his eyes fixed on the immutably grey features of London they passed, mind whirling, grateful when silence descended between them. The Royal London had the neonatal unit. Molly was only twenty-seven weeks pregnant, not even seven months. It didn't require his skill to make that deductive leap.

The driver stopped outside the main entrance to the hospital and Sherlock leapt out, not bothering to wait to see if his brother was coming. He had texted John on the way. He glanced at the direction board on the wall and made for the stairs, taking them two at a time with his long strides. He exited on the third floor, startling a passing nurse. "Molly Hooper," he panted. "Where is she?"

"Come here, dear. I'll find out. Is she pre-registered?" the nurse said calmly, patting his arm.

"Coming in by air ambulance," he said, his breath returning as they walked down the hall. "She's twenty seven weeks."

The worried look that came over the motherly nurse's face was not helping the rising panic that Sherlock felt. "Oh dear, well let's see. Let's see…" She walked quickly behind the desk and typed on the computer. "Are you the husband?"

"Fiancé," he lied smoothly. He _had_ asked her. "Where is she?"

"She's in theatre, dear. Doctor Morecome came in with her directly. They'll be scrubbing now."

"In theatre? Why? What happened?"

"I'll leave that for Doctor Morecome to explain, but she is being prepared for an emergency caesarean delivery." His heart leapt into his throat. He heard Mycroft come up behind him. Eyes wide, he looked around desperately.

"Can I go in with her? She wanted me to be there if something happened. Please?" he knew he sounded pathetic, but the blood rushing in his ears made it hard for Sherlock to find his usual eloquence.

The nurse looked him up and down. "I will go ask. Follow me."

She lead the two men down an adjacent hall and swiped her card to allow her through a pair of doors marked 'Surgical Staff Only.' A moment later, she was back. "I'm sorry, dear. They've had to knock her out. You can't go in."

Sherlock shot a pleading look at his brother. Mycroft's name opened doors; surely he could open this one. His older brother looked back at him sadly, his eyes tight with worry in one of the most raw expressions Sherlock had ever seen on the man's face.

The nurse herded them into the white-walled, antiseptic-scented surgical waiting room and told them they would be updated soon.

Mycroft sat, as regally as possible, in one of the red vinyl upholstered chairs, his neutral expression returned. Sherlock paced in the short room, stepping over the table in the middle with each pass.

After what felt like hours, but his watch assured him was only thirty minutes, Carter Morecome entered the room, clad in turquoise scrubs and a surgical cap. He shot an inscrutable look at Mycroft, but turned his attention to Sherlock who had frozen as he saw the sombre-looking man approach.

"First, mum and baby are okay." Sherlock dropped into one of the chair, he knees gone weak below him. He couldn't find the words to speak and just looked blankly into the obstetrician's face.

"It was a good thing Molly had her scan today. I actually saw the cornual scar start to open with my own eyes. She is a very, very lucky woman. Her uterus ruptured rather spectacularly just as we were opening her. We couldn't avoid a hysterectomy, but she's stable now, they are just closing her up. Your son came out screaming and weighs in at a very respectable eleven hundred grams. Early days yet, but he's looking fantastic for a twenty seven weeker."

"Can I see them?" he asked, voice very small in the room that felt too bright, too large, too sterile. Mycroft had moved to sit beside him - when, he didn't know - and had put a brotherly hand on his shoulder, something he had not done since Sherlock was a child.

The obstetrician pursed his lips slightly and reached up distractedly to pull his surgical cap off of his dark hair. "Molly will be in recovery for a few hours until we're positive she's haemodynamically stable, but you can go see your son." His expression softened and he smiled gently at Sherlock. "Congratulations, Sherlock."

Carter led Sherlock, walking in a daze, to the neonatal intensive care unit. He was prodded into a small room to change into hospital scrubs and flimsy, yellow infection control gown. He was silent as he was ordered through the infection control procedures necessary for very premature infants. He and Molly had known an early delivery was a possibility, and Sherlock had, naturally, read everything he could about it.

But as he stood starting into the plastic box that housed his tiny son, Sherlock knew that _nothing_ could have prepared him for this moment. The tiny infant's face was partially obscured by a cannula, providing oxygen. Wires monitoring various vital functions ran here and there and he was dressed only in an almost comically oversized nappy and a small, crocheted cap. He was hardly larger than Sherlock's hand. The nurse opened the small port hole on the side, telling him it was alright to touch, and he reached his hand through.

Sherlock brushed his son's tiny hand. When, after a long moment, he made to pull away, the impossibly small hand opened and wrapped around his finger.

Mycroft stood watching the scene silently through the window to the NICU. He felt Carter step up beside him.

"Thank you," he said softly. "For saving them."


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The information about premature neonates is all fairly correct, if simplified. Neither of my children was born as early as the little one in this story, but my youngest was a near miss so I spent quite a lot of time being prepared for a very premature baby, only to be very glad we hung on for long enough to only need a two week hospital stay.
> 
> As to the baby's name… you'll need to look it up to make the connection. Couldn't resist.

Molly smacked her dry lips and opened her eyes to look for some water. Her mouth was horribly dry and she ached _everywhere._ She reached a hand over her abdomen and, realizing it was no longer the taught dome of a pregnancy it had been, was reminded why she was here.

She fumbled for the controls on the side panel of the bed and tried several until she found the one that raised her upper body. She felt the pull of staples across a large incision. She briefly considered that two surprise abdominal surgeries in less than six months was a bit much, then her mind turned to the reason for each of them.

As the bed raised her to a reclined position, she saw that Carter was beside her bed. "Hullo, Molly dear. You had very good timing this morning. We weren't able to save your uterus, but you and your sweet little boy are expected to do just fine." He smiled, patting her hand softly. He held a straw to her lips and let her sip some ice water. "Sherlock is with him, and he's doing just fine. You'll be transferred to the maternity floor soon. I don't actually have privileges here, but Stern let me assist anyway. Told you I'd see you through to the end of this."

Molly smiled tightly at him. She cleared her throat. "C'n I see him?"

"You've just had major abdominal surgery, Molly."

"Mmm. Not new. Take me in a wheelchair…" Her head still felt very fuzzy. "Please?"

He waved to a nurse nearby. "Let's get you up to maternity then I'll take you down myself."

It took twenty minutes to get her transferred and settled. Carter spoke with the physician attending to Molly's care and was given the okay to move her.

They rounded the corner into the corridor that housed the neonatal intensive care unit. Carter covered her hospital gown with a yellow one, and had her clean her hands thoroughly with alcohol gel. He explained the hospital's policy on NICU patient safety, pointing out the variety of reminder signs. Molly hadn't stepped foot in a neonatal unit since her obstetrics rotation during her medical training, but the feeling of heartache she felt on entering the room populated by very small, sick people was one she had never forgotten.

She'd never imagined she would be entering one of these rooms to see her own child. Sherlock looked up as they entered and strode towards her. He bent down and pulled her carefully into a gentle embrace.

"Molly," he breathed, his voice thick with relief. "No one told me you were out of recovery," he said roughly into her hair. Molly reached up with the arm that wasn't attached to her IV and weakly returned the embrace. "I'm sorry I wasn't there. Are you okay?"

"Getting there," she said softly. "I need to see him."

Sherlock stood and came around so he could push her wheelchair himself. He positioned her beside the isolette and opened the port hole for her to reach through. "He's beautiful," she breathed, her voice catching. "But he's so small."

"He's a good weight. He's even had his oxygen lowered already and he's holding his sats," Carter said. "Many are still intubated at this stage, especially boys. I'm no neonatologist, but I know that the next challenge is going to be making sure he adapts well to feeding. That goes well, and he avoids any issues with infection, it'll just be eat and grow."

"How long do you think he'll be here?"

Sherlock answered, "they aim for release around the expected due date." Carter gave him a quelling look. "What? I read."

"The doctors in this part of the hospital deal with a lot of parents who think they're as good as consultants because they have Google on their mobiles. _Try_ not to piss them off."

"Carter, you have met him. Do you think that's likely?" Molly deadpanned, unable to resist the opportunity for a small barb at Sherlock.

The obstetrician smiled at her. "Yes, well, maybe you can rein in the worst of it. Now, what is this little gent's name? They like to make them a special little nameplate here, and it goes on the wall when they go home." Molly tried not to wonder about what they did with the nameplates for the ones who didn't. She could see by Sherlock's darkened expression that he'd had a similar thought.

"I don't know, we hadn't really decided on anything for certain," she said quietly. She held the infant's small hand, marvelling at his minute fingernails.

Sherlock was standing behind Molly, hands on her shoulders. His hands tightened on them and Molly leaned into the touch. "We will think of something," he said.

Carter understood it as a dismissal and neither of the new parents watched as he left.

"Can you believe we made him?" Molly asked, her voice full of awe.

"Starting to. He was kind of an abstract thought until now." She nodded, understanding what Sherlock meant. Even though she had felt him daily for nearly two months, the understanding that she was growing another actual human being had been something altogether separate from how she mentally catalogued pregnancy.

The doll-like infant's eyes open slightly and Molly drew in a breath. The dark blue irises were so large that the whites of his eyes were barely visible. "Hullo," she said softly, running a finger down her son's soft cheek, covered in the fine lanugo she knew to expect on a premature infant. "I'm your mummy." She couldn't stop the tears that filled her eyes when her voice caught. She looked into his dark eyes and felt he was observing her, much as Sherlock did, though she knew it wasn't possible. "What should we name you?" she asked the neonate in a whisper.

"I suppose Bartholomew is out of the question," Sherlock said simply. Molly snorted, making her opinion on the name - for the hospital in which they had met - quite clear.

"What was that one you suggested the other day? Bennett?"

She nodded, "After my grandfather."

"Since you won't let me name him Sherrinford," he smiled when Molly shoved him playfully, "I do like your suggestion of famous scientists. Seems fitting."

"Not Albert. Or Alfred. Or Louis. Nothing Greek. Why do they all have such stuffy old names?" Molly huffed and, seeing one of the decorative decals on the wall - an apple - suggested, "Isaac?"

"Bennett Isaac?" Sherlock seemed to roll the name around to test it.

"Isaac Bennett… something…" She and Sherlock both had four names - Mary-Margaret Helen Hooper and William Sherlock Scott Holmes - and had discussed wanting to continue the pattern with their son.

"Carter," the tall man said quietly, eyes distant. "He saved both of your lives."

"Isaac Bennett Carter Hooper. That's a lot of name for such a tiny person, but I like it." She stroked the dark, downy hair that poked out from where an IV line entered under his cap.

Sherlock crouched down beside her, his expression a bit pained. "Please, Molly. _Please_ just name him Holmes. If having the same name as him matters so much, you can change that."

She sighed, leaning her head on her arm, where she had it propped through the hole in the side of the isolette. "Fine. Holmes it is. For him, not me," she added. "Not yet, anyway."

Sherlock's eyes darted to her face and she could see the question in them.

"I'll think about it. That's all you're getting."

"Molly, we have a _child_ together and you're arguing about what amounts to a legal arrangement that simplifies a number of issues." His voice held more than a little frustration and he ran a hand through his hair, an unconscious mannerism Molly knew meant he was unsure of what to do.

"I said I'll think about it. But fine, we'll name him Holmes."

"Isaac Bennett Carter Holmes."

"Bit posh isn't it?" Molly smiled, looking over at her son whose eyes had closed again. _A name longer than he is._

Sherlock smiled beside her. "You should hear Mycroft's whole name. It's far worse than mine."

"What is it?" she asked distractedly, eyes fixed on the rise and fall of her tiny son's chest.

The man himself responded. "Edmund Mycroft Archimedes Holmes, at your service." Molly turned to look at the man who had entered silently. He, too, wore the blue-green scrubs and yellow gown the rather formidable nurses forced on everyone entering the room. Molly had never seen him look so positively awkward. "It is a Holmes tradition to use one's second name."

"Where _did_ your mum come up with Mycroft and Sherlock?" she asked, having wondered about it for some time. She'd not been able to find anything on the Internet about the history of the names. The brothers exchanged one of those _looks_ that meant they knew something, but she would get nothing out of them. She filed the thought away for later. "I do prefer Bennett," she said. "Bennett Holmes flows a bit better than Isaac Holmes."

She turned the name around in her mind, imagining how it would sound when shouted across the park or whether it would be suitably intimidating to draw his attention when he had done something naughty.

"A fine name," Mycroft said.

"Not that we needed your approval," Sherlock said coolly, "but thank you."

The normally exceedingly formal man stepped up to the other side of the isolette, hands held together behind his back. He smiled down at his tiny nephew, the usual haughtiness gone from the gentle gaze with which he observed the small, sleeping person. "I rang mummy and father. They are on their way back from Paris. Your sister should be here from Cardiff soon, Molly."

Molly felt very tired all of a sudden and let out a shuddering breath, feeling the intensity of the day catch up with her. "We haven't even been able to hold him yet. Not much they can do here besides wait around."

Sherlock made to speak, but a tall Indian woman stepped in at that moment and, seeing them, walked over. She extended her hand to Molly. "Indira Devi, consultant neonatologist assigned to your son's care. I understand you're a physician?"

Molly nodded weakly, shaking the doctor's hand. "Pathologist at Barts."

The woman smiled. "Well, that simplifies things. You're dad?" she looked at Sherlock. He nodded. "Mister Hooper?"

"Holmes."

The doctor's eyes narrowed, as if trying to remember something. She looked from him to Mycroft, her gaze assessing. "Are you Mycroft Holmes?"

"Yes," he said tonelessly.

Doctor Devi grinned. " _You're_ Carter's…" Mycroft cleared his throat pointedly and glared, silencing the woman. Molly and Sherlock exchanged a look and succumbed to a highly inappropriate fit of giggles.

"Right. Sorry." She cleared her throat and looked at the new parents who were both trying very hard to stop their quiet laughter. "Well, your son - sorry, does he have a name yet? Wasn't anything in the chart, and it gets awkward referring to someone who doesn't have a name," she said in her quick, clipped Bristol accent.

"Bennett," Sherlock said.

"That's a lovely name. Well, Bennett is doing just lovely. He's only a few hours so the next few days will really give us more of an idea of how we'll be getting on, but his first labs have come back and look great - his gas exchange is fantastic so his lungs are fairly mature. Molly, we'll need you to try pumping soon so we can try to get some fortified colostrum into him. We'll have to insert an NG tube since he won't be able to feed orally for a while, but we'll see how things go. Really depends on him."

"When can we hold him?" she asked. Her arms ached from the awkward position of stretching out from the wheelchair, but she also desperately wanted to cuddle her newborn son to her chest. A fierce longing to hold him flooded through her and she couldn't stop the tears that came when she realized it could be a very long time.

"We'll give him until tomorrow at least to adjust to the world outside. See how he takes a few feeds, if he can keep his oxygen stable. We really stress skin-to-skin contact with preemies - it helps them learn to regulate their temperatures and breathing - so we'll try to get that going as soon as possible." The immaculate woman smiled at Molly and Sherlock and glanced in at the infant once more. "He looks as good as I've ever seen a twenty seven week baby look. He's strong. I never make promises about outcomes, but I do think we're probably just going to need to get him eating and growing and he'll take it from there. Do either of you have any questions?"

Molly shook her head, still feeling full of cotton wool. Sherlock extended his hand to the doctor. "Thank you, Doctor Devi. If we think of anything, we will ask the nurses to contact you."

"Good, good. It was lovely to meet you both, and I'll try to touch base with you at rounds tomorrow morning. Congratulations." She looked over at Mycroft, a smile playing about her lips. "Do tell Carter I said hello." She winked playfully at Molly and Sherlock and strode out at a quick clip, not able to see Mycroft staring daggers at her back.

"Not a word, Sherlock," Mycroft said dangerously. "Not a word."

"Doctor Hooper? Your brother's coming in to see you." a nurse said through the intercom near Bennett's isolette.

She looked up in alarm, instinctively drawing herself closer to her son. Mycroft's head whipped towards the sliding door while Sherlock reached for intercom button.

The frosted glass door outlined a man on the other side for a fraction of a second before it slid open and the three froze.

"Well, it seems congratulations are in order, _Dad_ ," a lithe man in a Westwood suit said from the doorway, his Irish accent lilting pleasantly.


	21. Chapter 21

Mycroft and Sherlock Holmes were different in as many ways as they were alike. To Mycroft's cold calculation, Sherlock answered with bounding, enthusiastic deduction. Whilst Mycroft navigated the rigid formality of upper class British social life, Sherlock struggled mightily to avoid offending the people he cared about, and didn't even try to avoid the people he didn't. Where the younger brother could not abide any idleness and sought out every opportunity for stimulation, the elder was moved to action only when unavoidable.

But as anyone who spent time with them knew, Mycroft and Sherlock Holmes, two of the finest minds in Britain if not the world, were fiercely protective of one another.

As Mycroft stepped beside his brother, unsubtly obscuring the mother and child behind them from the sight of one James Moriarty, Mycroft said silently that his considerable power would now be brought to bear in the protection of Sherlock's small family as well.

"Why hello, Jim. Finally managed to claw your way out of the grave, I see. I've been missing you," Sherlock said with a saccharine voice.

"You've been missing me all over the place. Though I do thank you for clearing up that _little problem_ for me. Dear Charles did try so hard, but he was just a bit too heavy-handed."

Mycroft, his expression neutral but the rapid branching and dancing of threads of information behind his eyes evident, casually reached into his jacket pocket and withdrew his mobile, chuckling quietly when the screen lit up, showing the date. "You were off by three days, Sherlock. _Slipping_."

"Oh, he just never was that good, Mister Holmes," the Irish man said gleefully. "And now he's even got you dancing."

Mycroft's eyes darted, a bit too quickly, to Moriarty's face.

"And here I thought you knew better _._ The brothers Holmes; how disappointing you two turned out to be." He clapped his hands together loudly, smiling widely. "But I'm not here on a social visit! Business, business. How about you two lads meet me outside for a nice chat? I should think it goes without saying that this invitation is not optional."

He turned and left the doorway, appearing a moment later on the other side of the window to the corridor. He tapped his watch in an exaggerated gesture and pointed over towards the sliding door.

Sherlock turned to Molly, still seated in her wheelchair, her expression steely in its determination, but her rapid breathing and wide eyes belying the certainty of her face. "You said he was dead," she said darkly. "You said he was dead and you made sure of it and that he absolutely didn't fake his own death!" She turned to Mycroft "And _you,_ did you know? Of course you knew, look at who I am talking to!" Her voice had become shrill by the last as the fear in her eyes turned to rage.

"Molly," Sherlock began, but Mycroft cut him off.

"There is a proper time to share information, _Doctor Hooper,_ and you had no need to know, _"_ his forced formality made his pique evident. His mobile pinged, and he pulled it out, rapidly scanning the message. "Sherlock, outside. _Now._ "

Seeing his brother's expression shutter, Sherlock did not need to make much of a leap to deduce what the text Mycroft received must have said. Mycroft walked out of the room without a backward look.

Sherlock turned to Molly, scrambling through his mind for something to say, but only able to see the anguished look on her face. He knew his own must be no different. He laid one hand on her cheek and laid a soft, desperate kiss on her lips, trying to communicate in one short gesture everything that he struggled so mightily to speak. It was so brief she had no chance to return the kiss, but met his eyes as he pulled away.

"Promise me you won't die."

Sherlock's eyes roamed the room, looking for anything that would indicate any immediate danger in this room. Seeing nothing, he said urgently, "Stay with Bennett. Do not leave, do not let anyone take him. Understand?"

"Yes. Please come back," she was almost sobbing now, exhaustion and terror causing her to give up any hope of reigning in her emotions. In a few long strides, Sherlock was almost at the door which opened at his approach.

"I will try," she heard him said quietly as the door slid shut behind him.

Molly looked around the room, seeing only the pleasantly coloured walls, the other isolettes, and a few open warming cots for the healthier babies. She felt almost as though the air had been sucked out of the room. But for the quiet tones of monitors and the soft click-whoosh of two ventilators, the ward was silent. She returned her gaze to her tiny son and saw that his eyes were open, wide and staring.

"Well, we definitely didn't need that after the day we've had, now did we?" She tried to smile at him, but could manage only a grimace. "Let me tell you a story…"

* * *

The Royal London was a solid, hulking beast of a building, and Sherlock had just been treated to a detailed description of just how many PE-4 charges had to be carefully installed to make sure it would come down _just perfectly._ Moriarty was quite pleased with himself for having gotten them into place so quickly.

"I think this one might be a record," he said gleefully. "Bit of a cliché, but I just can't resist having everything go out with a bang! It's a style thing, but you'd know all about _that."_

Mycroft looked around the back seat of the car they had been directed into during the madman's explanation of exactly how his people would take down the hospital if the brothers did not follow him. "You could have tried to be a little less obvious, James," Mycroft said casually.

"He is losing his touch isn't he?" Sherlock said in a disinterested tone.

"Oh, terribly. Look at the little man, Sherlock," Mycroft drawled. "Still thinks that he'll surprise us. How dull."

Moriarty's eyes narrowed slightly, but he rapidly returned his expression to one of indifference, looking between the brothers.

"Mmm, boring," Sherlock added flatly, in agreement with his brother.

"Here we are my dear Holmes bros! Out we go!" They stepped out into a dark underground car park. There were no other vehicles, only a door a few feet away. Moriarty tapped a card to the reader by the door and it opened into a clean, bright corridor. Mycroft and Sherlock fell into step behind the Irishman and followed him into the London headquarters of MeriCore Pharmaceuticals.

* * *

Sherlock had dropped his mobile in Molly's lap before he had walked out. Her own was in her room on the maternity floor. She wasn't certain whether to be relieved or terrified that he had left the phone, but as she heard John's calm, steady voice on the line, she was glad for it.

He spoke quietly to her, reassuring her that they were doing everything they could. He had alerted Lestrade who had apparently called in every law enforcement agency in Britain, judging from the number of sirens that had converged on the hospital and the helicopters she could hear in the distance. Their lights reflected off nearby buildings and even on the third floor, Molly could see clear indication of the size of the flock of emergency vehicles surrounding the building.

Even now, the footage for every CCTV in the area was being carefully reviewed to find any evidence of where they had gone. She heard the call wait tone and checked the screen. _George (Mobile)_. Molly hit the call connect button. "Greg? Anything?"

"We're looking," said the Chief Inspector. "Nothing yet, but we're looking. Bomb disposal just cleared your floor. Looks good so far. Still checking the rest of the hospital." She could hear sirens even more loudly through the phone.

Molly had tears flowing down her face and her hands were shaking, but she managed to keep her voice steady. "Thank you for keeping me updated."

"We'll find them, Mols. Just you sit tight with that little boy," he said in his gentlest, most fatherly voice before he rung off. She hit the button to return to John's call, but he had already disconnected.

Molly kept her hand placed lightly on her son's thin arm, in some small way needing the physical connection with him, feeling almost as if she let go he would vanish if she dared let go. She sighed heavily and looked out the long windows, feeling utterly useless and more terrified than she had ever known.

* * *

"Tea?" asked Moriarty as he dropped into a leather chair behind his stately desk in the large, open office. Without waiting for their answers, he nodded to the man standing in the doorway. He stepped out, pulling the door closed behind him.

Sherlock and Mycroft each took a seat across the desk from the consulting criminal, each taking in as many details about the room as they were able. Vault behind the painting. Bullet proof glass on the tall windows. Shelves of books and curiosities. Sherlock recognized the jade pin on one of the shelves and couldn't help but smirk.

"You threaten us, we threaten you, someone doesn't die like they should. The usual, is it?" Sherlock asked flippantly as he sat in one of the chairs on the other side of his desk.

"I felt like a change. In this story, people actually die," he turned his laptop around, showing the brothers a camera feed. "Can't all of us have happy endings."

Sherlock's eyes darted to his brother. His features were a cold mask, but his eyes hardened almost imperceptibly and his fingers twitched as if he had barely restrained himself from clenching them into fists. The corners of Moriarty's mouth twitched up when he saw the small motion.

On the screen before them, Carter Morecome, face badly beaten, was quite clearly barely alive. He lay on a cement floor in a small room lit by what appeared to be a single, naked light bulb. His jacket lay discarded in a heap, and his tie was nowhere to be seen. The light blue shirt he wore was dotted with large, dark spots that could only be blood. He gurgled and spat out the corrupting froth from his lungs, barely able to draw a crackling breath before he coughed again.

"Thanks for that, Sherlock. Letting me know about your brother's little _goldfish."_ He turned the screen back around but turned up the volume so that they could hear the dying man gag and cough. "What a perfect description of these _ordinary_ people. Swimming around in their own filth, eating themselves to death given half an opportunity, too stupid to notice they're just going in circles. Around and around and around…" he made circles in the air with his hand, his voice trailing off.

"What do you want?" Sherlock asked, carefully schooling his expression into neutrality. He looked over at Mycroft and saw that his brother had been unsettled by the images on the screen.

"Nothing at all," he said, idly twirling a pen between his fingers. "I just missed our little chats, and thought I'd try to get to know mister Big Brother over here a bit better before I take him out. And I don't mean for dinner. Watch him squirm a little."

He stood abruptly and walked across the room, opening the door, and took a tea tray from the burly man outside. He set it on the desk and returned to his seat, crossing one thin leg over the other and leaning back.

"Oh listen to that. Just musical, that is. _Perfect."_ Moriarty increased the volume on the laptop to its maximum, its tinny speakers relaying every crackle of Carter's lungs. He mimed an orchestra director's movements in time with the inhalations and exhalations, each clearly audible. "Oh he is good at this; hanging on, drawing things out. You picked a good one." Mycroft closed his eyes, breathing deeply whilst trying to control his expression.

For a moment, the sound hung in the air between the three men, interrupted only by the booming sound of a church bell from the seventeenth century basilica nearby.

Abruptly, Sherlock rose. "Predictable," he said with a theatrical sigh. "Really, you've completely lost your touch."

"Not half as clever as he seems to think," Mycroft added in a bored voice to his brother, rising as well, the pain in his expression falling away completely, the mask dropped.

Moriarty's eyes darted between the brothers, calculating, "Oh, you are _trying_ aren't you? Even the Ice Man has thawed, though. I have your little toy. You _care_ about this one, I can see that."

"Oh, certainly," Mycroft said dispassionately, "But you missed something."

"You always do miss something. Five years, my dear Jim, and you still insist on playing your little games."

"What did I miss?" Moriarty asked at a shout. "Your little toys are either dead or sitting on enough explosives to turn Whitechapel into a crater."

"No they're _really_ not," Sherlock said with the hint of a laugh in his voice.

Mycroft buffed his nails in disinterest on his scrub top. "Your bombs were taken down as soon as they went up. Surely you don't think we'd be that oblivious."

"And your goon at the door. Bit of blood on his shoe, but no water so he hasn't been outside since it rained this morning. Carter is or was here in this building with us. Not enough time to have him anywhere else. We last saw him less than an hour ago and it takes some time to beat someone up like that." Sherlock was speaking at the rapid clip he adopted when explaining his deductions.

Mycroft continued Sherlock's deduction in a slower and far more self-satisfied tone, "No church bell in the audio feed and a few repeated segments of audio. You are watching a recording. Our people already have him, or he's already dead and you had to re-use the video." He looked up at Moriarty, expression flat. "Either way, that leverage is out of your hands."

Sherlock held up his arm, pointing to a spot by his wrist, the slightest hint of a dark spot was visible under the pale flesh of his forearm. "Lovely little thing, this. Implantable near field chip."

The criminal's eyes narrowed. "The door card readers," he said, realization dawning.

Sherlock and Mycroft wore matching, satisfied smiles. "Or any consumer mobile made in the last five years," Mycroft said. "You really shouldn't be letting your staff keep their phones during working hours. Lazy management. Our people knew we were here as soon as we entered the building." He held himself erect, straightening the turquoise scrub top he was still wearing.

"I have guns on you, of course," Moriarty drawled, gesturing to an unseen individual. "Simplistic, but effective. You won't make it down the corridor."

"Your people have been invited to reconsider," Mycroft said. He made a dismissive wave with his hand in the direction of the taller building next to MeriCore.

Sherlock smiled brightly. "Well, Jim, it's been a treat. Must dash, though." He extended his hand. Confused, Moriarty extended his own and took Sherlock's in a firm grip.

Moriarty frowned as Mycroft stepped over beside his brother, a small smirk on his face. "Indeed. Places to be, people to see. Wouldn't want to be late. Unfortunately, the same can't be said of you."

His eyes wide, Moriarty's gaze darted around the office, his body held as if ready to spring. " **What did I miss?"** His voice was mad, shrieking as the fact that he had been beaten dawned on him.

A small, red dot appeared on Moriarty's chest for a very short moment before blooming into the dark, red wet spot of a well-aimed shot to his heart, the soft thump of the impact accompanied by the crinkling sound of shattering glass.

"New windowpane in your office, courtesy of Her Majesty's Government," Mycroft said simply.

Years before, at the culmination of a days-long game of murder and mayhem, James Moriarty had praised Sherlock for taking part in his game, for providing him the amusement he sought at the cost of lives. As the psychopath fell back into his chair, eyes wide and face paling as the life left him, Sherlock leaned close and whispered into his ear. "Thanks for playing."

He turned back to Mycroft, a triumphant smile about his lips, just in time to see his older brother crumple to the floor.


	22. Chapter 22

"…and then this idiot fainted."

"I was stabbed!" Mycroft insisted indignantly from the other side of the table.

Sherlock rolled his eyes up. " _In the arm._ You fainted."

"I did not _faint."_ John couldn't help the laughter that bubbled up at the outraged look on Mycroft's face.

"How's Morecome doing?" the doctor asked. He had been dragged into an unmarked van by one of a team of black-suited operatives and driven to the headquarters of a pharmaceutical company whilst waiting for a cab to take him to see Molly. They hadn't even let him say goodbye to the very worried Molly Hooper he had been consoling. John was certain that the operative who had grabbed him would recover from the sound chinning he'd received for grabbing the Afghanistan veteran with the well-honed reflexes.

Rather used to this sort of thing after over five years in the company of Sherlock Holmes, John had waited in the van when only minutes later, a very injured man was dragged in and unceremoniously dumped into the back of the van. They had sped off, John doing his level best to ensure the man's airway stayed clear whilst stemming as much of the bleeding as he could. The driver shouted that they were on their way to the London as John put his considerable skills, honed in the crucible of battle, to test in keeping the bloodied man alive.

It wasn't until he had handed off care to one of the trauma team at the hospital that he learned the man whose blood covered him was none other than Carter Morecome, Molly's obstetrician and the man that Sherlock had been teasing his brother about relentlessly for weeks. John had not had the opportunity to meet the man before today.

John supposed, all things considered, the Holmes' having so many doctors in their exceptionally tiny social circle was probably for the best.

Mycroft sat perfectly still, his posture made somewhat less intimidating by the dark blue sling that held his injured left arm under the jacket of his assuredly very expensive suit. "His exact prognosis is uncertain, but his physicians are optimistic." He spoke stiffly, formally. "I… you… have my thanks," he said after a long moment.

"I would say 'anytime' but I would really rather you didn't keep bringing me bloodied people, thanks," John joked weakly. He cleared his throat lightly. "So, Moriarty's undoubtedly, absolutely completely and totally dead this time?"

"Oh yes," Mycroft said. "I checked."

"That's what you said _last time,"_ Sherlock ground out.

"I was lying," the cold man said with half of a shrug.

"Do you ever not?" John returned. "When did you figure it out, Sherlock?"

"Just after I came back at the end of April. Mycroft and I had one of those stereotypical furtive meetings in an out of the way location. We knew they wouldn't be able to resist following, so we let them know we thought Smallwood was involved."

"Predictably, our terrorist jumped at the chance to actually involve her," Mycroft added.

"Using some information we had planted about Lady Smallwood in what was left of Magnussen's physical archives at MeriCore. She was appropriately terrified, played along, let him pressure her. Really, the woman deserves an Oscar for her part in this." Sherlock's eyes were bright as he followed the disjointed pieces to their conclusion. His voice was rushed, the intensity increasing with every point. "I made sure we had enough evidence to manage the legal side of things."

"And I ensured that the public, and as a result the criminal classes of Europe, thought we were under the impression we'd broken the ring. They do get so careless when they think they've won."

"Did you actually arrest any of them?"

"Of course," Sherlock said. "It would have been _far_ too obvious if we hadn't. We just ensured that Lady Smallwood protected MeriCore from any of the investigations. Lots of bribes. Actually, it helped us find a number of other compromised officials. Naturally, Moriarty centralized his operations a bit once we'd taken out most of his immediate underlings. We made sure the door security system for each of his remaining buildings had been hacked so it could be triggered by the near field chips, and we waited for him to kidnap one of the five of us who had been identified as his most likely targets."

"It was a bit _Bond-ish"_ Mycroft smirked. "But then, I am MI6 and we do so love our theatrics." John considered that Mycroft's simple statement - _I am MI6 -_ was probably the most honest thing the man had ever said.

"So Carter had triggered the alert himself before you were ever kidnapped." He made that connection himself. "But what about the bombs?"

Sherlock huffed slightly. "I was not _kidnapped_ , John. We went willingly."

"Under threat of your family being blown to pieces is not 'willing.' You were kidnapped. How'd you know about the bombs?"

"Oh, that." Mycroft pointed to one of the cameras in the hall. "Electronic facial recognition. We've had it watching the building for him since we arrived, since it was most likely he'd come after us here, in the circumstances."

"This grudge was too personal for him to leave to his lackeys. We have almost all of his explosives experts in custody already, anyway. Balance of probability was such that he would most likely attempt to bomb the hospital, and circumstances meant if he chose to, he would have to do it himself. The bomb unit was here, taking the charges down as soon as he put them up. Though his work was quite elegant."

"Would have been quite an asset if he hadn't been insane," Mycroft agreed, sipping his sugary tea.

John, eyes a bit wide, looked between the brothers. "And all of this started with three screws and a piece of oak flooring in a basement."

Sherlock grinned wickedly. "Your blog readers are going to _love_ this one."

"Yes, and you might finally be forced into that knighthood, Sherlock," said his brother.

* * *

Carter Morecome lay in the intensive care unit a week later, messy dark hair spread on the pillow around him, though most of his hair was covered by bandages where wires ran to the top of his head. The straps that held the ventilator tube in his mouth obscured most of his face.

Mycroft sat in the chair beside his bed, eyes cast down at the leather-bound book in his hands. _The Odyssey_. Sherlock knew, now, that Carter and his brother had first met at Oxford. Over the past few days, he had learned from his parents that it was during the year before Carter transferred to medicine at Leeds instead of completing his economics education that the two men had met in an English literature class they had been required to take.

Molly had told him that her friend and colleague had told her about his first boyfriend, one time when they had been at lunch together some years ago. The man, Carter had never said his name, had helped him survive the wrath of his father who disowned him once Carter was public about being gay. Molly said she would never have suspected it was Mycroft, based on the softness with which the obstetrician spoke of his long-ago paramour. Not until she saw the recognition that sparked between them two months before on the day that Sherlock had fled England.

Sherlock had only been eleven when Mycroft started at Oxford, and had no recollection of his brother having ever brought anyone home to meet their parents during his time at uni, though his orientation had been something of an open secret since his Harrow days.

Their parents had known about the relationship between two young men, Sherlock had discovered, but had never let on enough that his younger self became aware of it. The younger Holmes brother felt it was probably one of the few things his parents had ever kept from him, though he suspected it had more to do with him considering Mycroft incapable of human emotion and thus rejecting any possibility that the man had _attachments._

Though Mycroft sat calmly, turning pages with a long finger at regular intervals, Sherlock could see that his muscles were exhausted from the long hours seated on that most uncomfortable, vinyl monstrosity that passed for a chair in this hospital.

Mycroft looked up as he entered. "Any change?" Sherlock asked.

"They will be reducing the sedation in the morning," Mycroft said, closing the well-loved book around a finger. "His intracranial pressure has normalized and they intend to see if he will wake on his own."

Sherlock nodded. He could think of any number of things he could say to bait Mycroft, but even he - famously socially inept detective that he was - had learned _some_ tact, though he did not frequently bother with it where his brother was concerned.

"Do you need anything?" he asked awkwardly, the situation entirely new to him. This was not the Mycroft he bantered with, the one who stood at Sherlock's own bedside in this very hospital after his overdose ten years ago and threatened him. This was not the Mycroft Holmes who existed as the personification of the British Government, who brought down master criminals and commanded the will of a nation. Here, in this room, Mycroft was only the sad, silent man who sat beside an unconscious Carter Morecome and never spoke a word to the nurses who bustled in and out.

"No, thank you," Mycroft said simply, meeting Sherlock's eyes evenly. "I will be going soon as I have some meetings to attend before this business is over with."

"Can't they wait?"

Mycroft lifted his eyebrows and pursed his lips in a vaguely helpless look. "These people are not accustomed to waiting to be briefed. I've taken as long as I am able already."

The two men lapsed into silence for a long minute. "How is my nephew?" Mycroft asked finally.

"Fantastic. He is back up above his birth weight. Molly and I were finally able to hold him and he held his temperature. She was discharged this morning, but we'll be staying here as long as they let us. His feedings have gone well. The neonatologist is optimistic."

"Good. That's good," he said distractedly. He rose and adjusted his suit jacket, fastening the button. "I will be by to see him at the conclusion of my meetings, if that is acceptable to you." Sherlock nodded. "Thank you. Do give Molly my best."

Without a backward glance, Mycroft strode out of the room. Sherlock knew it was awkward for him, to be seen as anything other than the cold computational human being for which he was famous. He and John, together with Mycroft's PA, had gone to exceptional lengths to keep any hint of media away from this ward. Mycroft was a desperately private man and though Sherlock's life may have played out frequently in the gaudily coloured pages of Britain's many tabloids, it would have never suited the older man to appear in them himself.

Sherlock heard the soft steps of Molly's runners on the hospital lino approaching him from behind. He held out his hand and she grasped it with both of hers, leaning into his side.

"How is he?" she asked softly, with the hushed voice people tended to adopt in hospital rooms of unconscious patients.

"They'll be trying to wake him up in the morning."

"I meant Mycroft," she said. "I can just read Carter's chart. Doctor, remember?"

"Mmm," he replied noncommittally. "I honestly don't know. This is new territory. I've never seen Mycroft," he paused, trying to find the right word, "lost like this."

"I have, once. When he came to get you after your fall, until he knew for sure you were alright."

Sherlock shot her an odd look. "You are far more observant than I assumed you could be."

She narrowed her eyes at him, "I'm not sure if that's an insult or a compliment."

"Compliment," he said quickly, having learned at least something of how to deal with women. "Definitely a compliment."

She pulled his hand up, still twined with hers, and dropped a kiss on his knuckles. "Good. Let's go get some dinner. Ben is asleep. John and Mary have a sitter staying with Willa. They'll be at the Terrace, just down the road, to meet us soon."

Sherlock let her lead him away from the room of the man to whom he owed the lives of his small family. The soft click-whoosh of his respirator faded into the distance before the doors to the intensive care unit closed behind them.


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I started this story as a way to cope with my own recent loss and writing this story turned out to be just what I needed. 
> 
> I encourage those who have read to spend some time learning about pregnancy loss. Chances are you know someone who has experienced a loss, with one in four pregnancies being lost to miscarriage, but many grieve silently. Pregnancy loss, in particular early pregnancies, is woefully misunderstood, and many men and women grieve their lost children in silence when they most desperately need the support of those who love them.

_**Wedding Bells are in the Air! Famous Detective to Wed** _

_In an exclusive revelation, the Mail has confirmed that a reception venue has been booked under the name of_ Holmes _for late June. The Baker Street bad boy found domestic bliss with pathologist Molly Hooper of Barts hospital, with whom he has worked for nearly a decade. With the birth of their son Bennett last year, the nuptials have long been expected…_

"I loathe tuxedos," Sherlock muttered, adjusting his waistcoat.

"It's tradition," John said from the back of the room, dressed more simply in a black suit and deep blue tie.

Sherlock looped the bowtie around his neck and folded the collar over it, deftly tying the annoyance with practiced hands. "I can't believe you talked me into doing this again," he grumbled.

"At least you don't have to give a speech this time," John pointed out helpfully. "I think one best man speech from you in a lifetime is more than enough."

"My speech at your wedding solved multiple crimes in twenty minutes. I think that qualifies it as a success," Sherlock said with falsely wounded pride.

"Yeah, well, you offended half my guests. Try to just shut up this time around, Sherlock," his best friend supplied. "Considering the guest list."

The wedding of two of Britain's most notable scions had resulted in a guest list that would make the authors of England's varied society pages swoon. The bill for security for the event, however, would likely raise some eyebrows, but it was unavoidable what with royalty in attendance.

" _Oh, Lord,_ save me from my mother," Mycroft groaned, closing the heavy oak door behind him a little too forcefully. John laughed at the harried look on his face. "Sherlock, I will kill you for this someday."

The detective grinned wickedly at his brother. "I'm not the one who can't say no to her. _Oh of course, Mummy, you can help plan things."_ He mimicked his brother's most wheedling voice.

"Kazakhstan, Sherlock. I am going to send you to Kazakhstan," Mycroft growled.

"Ah ah ah, brother dear. I don't report to you anymore."

His demeanour shifted abruptly. "And for that, brother mine, I am grateful."

"I'm going to pop out and find my seat," John said. "Mary's sure to be going a little mad with Ben and Willa both." He stepped out, leaving the brothers alone.

Once Sherlock finished checking that his tuxedo was immaculate, he looked over to his brother, seeing the lines of stress around his eyes. He stepped up, partly behind Mycroft and looked into the overlarge mirror over his brother's shoulder. "Look at us, Mycroft. We've been tamed."

The taller man straightened his tie and adjusted his pocket square carefully. "Perhaps. But is it all so bad, in the end?"

"Words I never thought I'd hear from you. Caring is not an advantage, remember?"

"It isn't," Mycroft said simply. "But it also isn't without its merits."

* * *

The wedding of Mycroft Holmes and Carter Morecome, twenty-six years in the making since that September day in an Oxford lecture hall, had gone off without incident. As the feast wrapped up and various dignitaries about whom Sherlock did not care one whit made their final congratulations to the couple before they departed for parts unknown, Sherlock dropped into the seat beside Molly.

The two of them had long ago exhausted themselves dancing to the beautiful music of the string quartet. Sherlock had led them in his own composition for the first dance, then had put away his violin for the remainder of the evening.

"I can't wait to get out of these shoes," Molly groaned, reaching down to rub her aching calf. "I'm not going to be able to walk at all by tomorrow, and we're meeting with the estate agent."

While Molly had yet to accept the proposal he had made over a year before, they were, in every way, together. Bennett had outgrown the small cot that fit in Molly's bedroom - Sherlock could still only think of her flat as _her_ flat - and she had listed the property she had called home for seven years for sale. Molly stood to make a considerable profit on it, the property's value in the attractive Smithfield having increased considerably. The murder that had so drastically reduced the price she paid was distant enough in the public memory that it no longer affected her ability to sell. She had received three offers already.

"I don't think we'll need to see too many properties," he said. "You've already narrowed the list down enough." He reached up his arms as Mary approached, holding Bennett in her arms with the fifteen month old, golden-curled Willa walking somewhat unsteadily beside her. The former assassin deposited her charge in his father's arms.

A room to the side of the hall had been reserved for the amusement of the children of attendees, but the attendants were now leaving for the day as the festivities wound down and the varied infants and toddlers were being returned to the care of their parents. It had only been Miriam Holmes' insistence that Mycroft and Carter permit children in attendance that had yielded this small concession for Sherlock's peace of mind. He did not relish the thought of leaving his son with some barely known child minder whilst the best of the country's security services were occupied with the wedding.

Thirteen month old Bennett Holmes was still small for his age, but had started to make up for his exceptionally early start. To Molly and Sherlock's delight, he had been released nearly two weeks before he had been due, and they had settled easily into family life. Molly took a year's maternity leave from her post at Barts when Bennett had been born, and had returned only a few weeks ago.

Sherlock, his resignation from Joint Intelligence finalized within days of the death of James Moriarty, had taken a short break from his own work until an exasperated Molly forced him out the door of her flat and called John to come _do something_ with the detective.

He had returned to the work he loved, but each evening locked the door behind him at Baker Street, said his goodbyes to Mrs. Hudson, and took a cab to Fetter Lane. Molly had soundly refused to move into the two bedroom flat that Sherlock already let, pointing out that he needed space to work, and Bennett probably shouldn't be living in a flat where Sherlock did his research.

They had finally decided to purchase a property for their family and were meeting with the estate agent the following day.

Sherlock ruffled his small son's short, dark curls and handed him a biscuit from one of the plates on the table. Molly smiled at the two but snapped her head around at the flash of a camera.

"Honestly," she huffed, exasperated. "They won't even make it out the door with the camera card. How many does that make now?"

"Thirty-seven," Sherlock responded, amused.

"Well, I'm certain the Internet knows by now that it's not our wedding they've been going on about for a month."

"Anderson is heartbroken, I'm sure. Wish I could get a picture of _that._ "

Mary looked around for John and, seeing him speaking to some dress-uniformed Military official of some sort, decided to stay with her friends. She was still a touch nervous about those sorts. "When are you two going to get married, anyway?"

Molly shrugged. "Maybe eventually." She looked around at the veritable opulence that surrounded them. "But I think we'll just see a registrar if we do."

"Molly doesn't want me folding serviettes again," Sherlock drawled.

Mary laughed softly and gathered the wandering Willa Watson into her arms. "I think this one is for bed. If you'll excuse me, I need to go drag my husband out of the clutches of some colonel." Planting the toddler on her hip, Mary walked off, leaving the small family alone at the table.

Molly leaned her head on Sherlock's shoulder. His arm snaked up around her, while he steadied their son on his knee with his other hand. One of the official wedding photographers came by and asked if he could take a photo. Molly smiled softly at him and nodded her agreement. He snapped a photo of the family and wandered off.

"This has been a very long day," she said quietly. "We should get young sir home or we won't get him to sleep at all if he gets overtired." She couldn't stop the yawn that followed her words.

Sherlock dropped a kiss on the crown of her head, then pushed her up so he could stand. He held Bennett up at his shoulder and listened to the toddler's excited babbling. He'd started to speak a few words in the last week and used them as frequently as possible. Sherlock was quite pleased that his son was doing so well ahead of the expected time, based on the adjusted age used for determining milestones for premature babies. Pleased, but not at all surprised.

After all, it was only to be expected that his progeny would surprise people.

Later that evening, after Ben had been settled into his cot and two glasses of red wine were poured, Sherlock stood looking out Molly's sitting room window pensively, though at nothing in particular. Never having been one to imbibe alcohol, particularly after his one utterly disastrous experience for John's stag night, Sherlock had not initially shared in Molly's occasional evening ritual of a glass of red wine, but she had convinced him of its enjoyability. He took a sip of the dark liquid and set the glass aside, taking up his violin.

Molly stepped back into the sitting room after checking on their son and sat on the sofa, curling her feet up beside her, wine in hand. She sipped as she watched Sherlock silently tune his instrument.

He had played for her before. Molly's mother had gone to great lengths to ensure that her girls had an appreciation for classical music, though neither had ever learned to play an instrument. Molly recognized the painfully beautiful pieces that would sing from Sherlock's bow in the evenings and she would fall in love with him all over again every time he played.

Tonight, it was a new piece, one she had not heard him play before. The gentle, swirling melody surrounded her and sank into her very being. Long notes entwined as Sherlock's fingers danced across the strings, drawing from the depths of the violin its richness.

As the last, soft notes hung on the air, Molly opened her eyes, having closed them to listen to the beautiful piece. "I didn't recognize that, what was it?"

He pulled a folded piece of paper off of the bookshelf near him and handed it to her. "I wrote it the day you told me of your pregnancy," Sherlock said quietly.

The paper had been crumpled before, she could tell, but it had been carefully flattened, the creases rubbed out. The scars of its mistreatment were etched into the fibres of the paper, however, much like the pain of the loss that had caused him to try to destroy this beautiful music would never leave them. Their son slept peacefully not twenty feet from them, but Molly knew she would always wonder what her life would have been like if their other child had survived as well.

She took a deep breath, forcing herself not to cry - he never could quite figure out what to do with crying women - stood and threw her arms around him. "That was beautiful, Sherlock. Thank you."

"We've come a long way since then, haven't we?" he asked softly over her head, bringing his own arms up around her. The ease with which this man - so uncomfortable with casual affection that even his mother's hugs unsettled him - embraced her still made her smile.

"Yes, we have. I had no expectations, Sherlock Holmes, but if I had, you would surely have exceeded them." She leaned up and kissed him. "Thank you."

He set his violin down on the book shelf and touched the screen of Molly's iPad. Bach's _Jesu, Joy of Man's Deisiring_ on violin - his, of course - played over her sound system. Sherlock took one of her hands in his, and placed the other about her waist.

They danced slowly around her sitting room to the evocative music, much as they had first done one winter's night three years ago when he had stayed Christmas with her during the solitary mission from which she had been his one escape.

The pair was content in each other's company, their matched expressions of peace lit only by the glow of London's summer lights through her windows.


	24. Epilogue

"Molly, I have a proposition for you," Sherlock said, sitting down at a small bistro table in the conservatory off their kitchen one late August day. "And I hope it won't take you two years to agree to this one."

Molly Holmes looked up from the Nature article she had been reading on her iPad, seated beside Bennett who was picking up pieces of cereal and examined each one carefully before popping them into his mouth.

Sherlock ruffled his young son's floppy, brown curls and took a piece of the cereal for himself.

"Daddy! Tha's mine!" the young boy cried with all the indignation a two year old could muster.

"What is this proposition?" Molly asked, expression carefully schooled into neutrality.

Sherlock sat up straight, adopting his best schoolboy manners. He gave his son a conspiratorial look and cleared his throat softly. "I think Ben needs a dog."

"Sure," Molly said simply.

He went on in what Molly had long since termed his _deductions_ voice. "Now I know you like your cat and I'm sure if we get a puppy it will adapt to the cat with a minimal adjustment period. With a garden as large as ours, there should not be any trouble ensuring it has exercise even if we aren't able to take it out for a walk on any particular evening. Children with dogs, statistically, have fewer incidents of cold and flu-like illness and typically experience fewer allergies. As Ben was premature, anything we can do to ensure he has a robust immune system should be seriously considered, and so I think we should get him a dog."

"Very impressive arguments, Sherlock, but I already agreed." She smiled brightly at her husband of three weeks. "I've always loved dogs. I just didn't have a garden in Smithfield. I was thinking of it myself."

His face broke in a gleaming smile, his blue eyes bright, the corners crinkled up. Molly did so love it when he smiled like that. It did, however, have the effect of making him look all of twelve years old instead of the nearly forty he now was. "You hear that, Bennett? We're going to get a puppy!"

"Puppy!" the toddler crowed enthusiastically. "Woof!"

"Very good, Ben. That's exactly what a dog says." Molly sipped her tea and turned back to her article. "I assume you've already found one?"

"Of course," he said as he pulled out his mobile. He held it out to her. "Irish setter. Intelligent, friendly, easily trained, and there's a breeder near Dover who has a litter ready to go home in a week."

Molly handed Bennett the toddler cup of juice he had pushed a bit too far away to reach. "You call and we'll go pick one out. How's that sound, Ben my dear?" Her voice raised to a pleasant chirrup at the last and Bennett giggled at his mother.

"Now, I'm for work. Will you get him to the centre or shall I take him?"

"Taking the day off today, I think. I don't have any pressing cases, so Ben and I are going to the shops!" He pulled the toddler out of his seat and held him on his hip.

"Have a lovely day in the morgue," Sherlock said, giving Molly a quick kiss and hurrying out of the room with his son. She shook her head, looking after them, laughing softly to herself at seeing her husband bound out of the room like an excited puppy himself.

On Saturday morning, Sherlock drove his small family to the small farm near Dover in a hired car. They pulled up to a small, neat cottage surrounded by green pastures. Two bay horses in a paddock near the house watched the car approach with the wide-eyed disinterest common to all equines.

Sherlock parked the car and they got out, Molly removing Ben from his child seat in the back. They walked together to the cottage, Molly's small hand held loosely in Sherlock's while Ben ran ahead of them excitedly exclaiming over the animals he could see.

Molly knocked at the door when they reached it. A moment later, the door opened. Before anyone said a word, Ben crowed "Getting a puppy!"

The gentleman in his fifties who had answered the door smiled benevolently at the child. "Indeed you are, young master Holmes," he said with mock formality. "Lovely to meet you, Mister Holmes. I've read about you." He extended his hand to Sherlock, who shook it firmly, only slightly more habituated now with encountering people who had heard of his work, though it always made him uncomfortable.

"Sherlock, please. Thank you for meeting with us Mister White. This is my wife Molly, and our son Bennett."

"Pleased to meet you." He inclined his head to Molly and smiled widely over towards Bennett. "The pups are in the barn. Follow me and let's see if any of them suit, eh?"

They followed the man into the surprisingly tidy barn. One of the horse stall doors was open and the stall was full of soft, sweet-smelling straw. Four rust coloured puppies bounced around between the bales, chasing one another in a game played by young animals of most species. Bennett squealed in excitement and ran into the stall, falling face first into the straw. Molly made to help him up, but he had already rolled over, laughing, and was in an instant surrounded by young dogs who licked his face enthusiastically.

Ben pushed the pups aside as he stood up in the straw, somewhat overwhelmed by their exuberance. "Yuck," he said pointedly, wiping his face with his sleeve.

From the side of the stall, a puppy smaller than the others stepped toward the youngest Holmes. He almost seemed to shy away from his bounding siblings, but approached Bennett cautiously. The toddler reached a hand out and the small dog gently licked the tips of the young boy's fingers.

The puppy stepped closer to Bennett and the small boy stroked the silky, red fur gently. The dog sat down, and leaned a bit of his weight against the boy's legs, looking up at him with wide, deep brown eyes.

"I think we'll have that one," Sherlock said pointedly.

Molly smiled. "Yes, looks as though they've chosen each other."

Later that day, as Sherlock and Molly watched their son frolicking in the back garden with his new friend; Molly wondered aloud what they should name the new addition.

"That's already been decided," Sherlock said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"When?"

"When Ben and I went shopping." Sherlock held up the tag he'd had printed for the dog's collar and handed it to Molly who smiled when she read it and handed it back to her husband. He attached the tag to the metal ring on the thin, leather collar.

The detective walked over to the young friends and affixed the collar around his newest family member's neck. "Remember the name we picked for him, Ben?"

Bennett nodded and, as his father returned to the patio to sit back down, called happily to his new friend. "C'mon Redbeard!"


End file.
